Is Joe Calzaghe Overrated?

I don't think he is. But I agree to a large extent with your analysis. However the one fight that makes me think he is not is the Kessler win. The rest can be argued, but I think (as you) that Kessler is so good that it sort of proves Joes quality. However, unless we can argue that he won because Kessler was injured and couldn't train for the fight (which is true, but I don't know how much it impacted the fight) or that Kessler lost because it was away in front of one of the largest audiences ever in boxing or some other reasonable explanation, I think we will have to say that that fight proved Joe.

Trying to counter Kessler's qualities is I think not a viable way to argue against Calzaghe because Kessler will be around for many years and could easily turn out to beat many of the fighters you mention - and then what?

IF you can argue why Kessler lost to Calzaghe - if Calzaghe is overrated - without dissing Kessler (because dissing Kessler will probably not stand the test of time) then we can discuss whether Calzaghe is overrated, but until then I cannot support the idea that he is overrated.

 

When it comes to skills and talent he's not overrated, but when it comes to competition/record he is.

 

Right now his career is a mix of Sven Ottke and Jermain Taylor. It's impressive, and should be hall-of-fame worthy, but not truly great, and not enough to be called P4P #1. Yes he is overrated. However, he is one of the top 3 guys in the world right now. I'm saying he is overrated because people are now comparing him to prime Jones & Hopkins, when he never beat Ottke, Mundine, Beyer, or G. Johnson, all of whom were at the top during Calzaghe's reign. And when he finally does decide to do something significant, it's when Jones is 40 and 0-3 against the only world class fighters he's fought in over 4 years, and Hopkins is 43 and 2-2 in his previous 4 fights. He's not great. If you say he is truly great, your overrating him.

 

It depends how do you rate him .....
- If you say he is top 10 ATG you definitely overrrate him, but if you put him insie 100 ATG then its not
- If you say he is HOF material, then why not he definitely is
- If you say he is #1 p4p currently then its questionable considering recent PAC win ... but its still debatable, he is strong #2 candidate

The guy is unbeaten, 10 years ... over 20 title defenses, now took the best guys at his division and moved up in weight fighting current or former p4p fighters .... yes he start late but he did and he is successful.

 

But he's beaten people who have beaten three of those four :?

 

Exactly.

 

Beside that its not possible to beat Ottke :deal

 

Obviously yes. Took him almost 10 years from the time he won the WBO title to fight for another belt(IBF). Now wants to fight past prime fighters only.

 

If his opponent didn't fly for it even that wouldn't have happened, including the WBC/WBA titles when Kessler had to fly with his belts as well.

 

Boring

 

He's not. IMHO if he had fought Pavlik at the end of the year and won against him he would have made a case for #1 pfp, but the problem is he wants nothing to do with Pavlik who IMHO would get starched by Cal. Now JC just looks like a ducker.

 

Yes

 

:thumbsup

I guess we can close this thread

 

End of the day put him in the ring with any MW / SM / LH and he beats the lot, how can he be overatted FFS....

His CV is the problem, not necessarily his fault, he wanted RJJ and BH years ago, FW must take a lot of the blame.