Joe Calzaghe and Bob Fitzsimmons P4P

Without really thinking too hard I think I’d have Fitzsimmons somewhere around 30-40 but I know less about his era. I’d have Calzaghe around 70-80 I’m a big Calzaghe fan and rate him more than most but he was a tremendous fighter and he had some big accomplishments/accolades and some underrated wins.

 

Bob is an ATG, but joe no, so he wouldnt be in ATG list and not great P4P either.





H2h -

prime bob ko1 is a possiblity, since bob is one of the great LHWs, and we all know Joe went down to 40something LHWs who no longer had KO power.

But its possible joe survives round 1 like he did against hopkins, by cheating with lowblow. In that event Bob would finish joe late.

 

Fitz is at the top for me.

A lot of his early record is very underrated. Billy McCarthy, Dan Creedon and Jim Hall were all top middleweights
https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/bob-fitzsimmons-as-a-middleweight-re-evaluated.602975/

A lot of his opponents weren't the novices that a quick look on boxrec suggests, for example Abe Coughle has no other fights, but in fact had fought a 54 round draw before the fight with Fitz
https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18900410.2.14&txq=+Abe+Cougle

Another win was when he beat George Gardner for the Light Heavyweight title, he was 40 years old by this point, but there's more to it. IIRC (and it was a while ago now I went through the news reports), he had injured hands, reported feeling ill, and collapsed a couple days later from pneunomia. How many others could win a 20 round fight in that state?

 

I have Fitz at number 6.
I'd put Calzaghe somewhere around 150, I would guess.

 

Direct comparisons difficult due to the differences between their respective eras.

Fitz was a fistic marvel and probably the greatest fighter of the late 19th century. There hasn’t quite been anything like him since.

Calzaghe is a genuine hall of famer, with a long unbeaten record and some quality wins. The lack of depth on his record makes it difficult to go any higher, but he is a polarising entity who some would have higher, but others barely acknowledge at all.

 

In terms of numbers, if I was doing an ATG list Fitz would probably be too 20, and I’d stop doing the list before I got down to calzaghe level.

(Not a knock on calzaghe, but beyond say top 50 I find it impossible to rank in any meaningful way)

 

Billy would get conned out of his victory