Joe Calzaghe cheesed his way to "greatness"

Roy was losing to everyone at that stage including Danny Green. Presumably the Green blowout was a lot more distressing to Roy fans.

Roy was also heavily favored to win that fight.

 

American here. Calzaghe is a Top 5 SMW ever. He beat a BHop that went on to beat Pascal twice and went 12 with Dawson and prime Kovalev, beat RJJ who rebounded, beat prime Kessler, a fresh version of Sakio Bika that Andre Ward was praised for beating, prime Lacy, and an older but still solid Eubank Sr


tl;dr YDKSAB

 

Lacy was very overrated.

Barely winning against Omar Sheika should've been a big red flag.

But there was also Lacy struggling alot vs Syd Vanderpool aswell if I remember rightly I think Lacy was losing that fight until pulling it out late on.

Lacy's win over Robin Reid was also one of the most shameful referee jobs I've seen and not alot of people know about it.

Basically Lacy clearly hit Reid on the break which should've been a point deduction for Lacy. But yet the referee called it a knockdown whilst Reid was still dazed and he didn't recover from it.

You can lose a fight as a young champion and not be classed as overrated.

For example Fernando Vargas showed enough quality in his career that showed he was legit despite his losses.

But i never really got the hype with Lacy though he was very basic with a big punch but not much else to me.

Why was Lacy favoured ? Well Calzaghe had a few rubbish fights against non hopers not long prior to the Lacy fight vs the likes of Evans Ashira, Kabary Salem, and he didn't exactly set the world alight in those fights.

Also Calzaghe wasn't that well known to the American public he was mostly defending the lowly regarded WBO belt for years in Wales.

Hindsight shows Calzaghe was probably better than what people initially thought but I still think he's a bit overrated myself.

 

From a boxing fan’s standpoint I can understand the criticism of Joe's career and resume, but I think it’s fair to say that I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone saying he was the greatest fighter of his generation or an all time great.
But I don’t understand how any boxing fan fails to appreciate his accomplishments when you take into consideration his route to becoming a champion.
He was trained by his father in basically a tin shed, a father who had no experience in boxing, he was an immense athlete who would spend hours running through the hills of Wales.
He was overlooked for the Olympics despite being being the most talented fighter in his division and having beaten the fighters who ended up going to the Olympics, because he wasn’t from a famous gym.
I don’t have any argument against the idea that he avoided fighting for other titles against big names that have been mentioned here, but I think if you were to look at it as how he managed his career then I think it is pretty impressive.
Would you rather have a career like joes or a career like amir khan’s, they are both at opposite ends of the spectrum when you consider how their fathers managed them, amirs father was willing to put him in with absolutely anyone even if he knew he had no chance.
Joe’s dad was more choosy.
I imagine that khan had the more successful career from a financial perspective, Joes career is still getting talked about, whereas khan is brought when you are talking about the greatest knockouts in boxing history and he’s on the wrong side of that.
All fighters manage their careers when they are considering their opponents, but the thing that makes Joe’s story all the more remarkable is that his hands were so weak, he had to adjust and his punches were definitely more on the slappy side but he continued all the way to becoming undefeated.
It should also be said that if he was any other type of fighter other then a pressure fighter he would not have been able to continue to have the career he had.
I find it hard not to like Joe and if you haven’t watched the documentary on his career and his relationship with his father.
The truth is that Joe would probably have been more respected if he didn’t retire undefeated, it puts him in a different realm than most other fighters, and in that respect the criticism par for the course.

 

Put all that aside...we've had some great fights from them.

 

He's overrated. Resume is too thin. Roy was shot and B-Hop old, though still good. I still like Joe and think he was good.

 

It was wide open for you, it was kind of a tap in and you chose to go for Mayweather over Crawford..... Shame.

 

Calzaghe is an ATG. The BHop he beat was very live...like a fight or removed from his absolute prime. Absolute nonsense that Calzaghe was overrated. He just wasnt flashy and had a unique fighting style. Clearly though he was good enough because he beat BHop, battered RJJ (who just beat Trinidad), Lacy, Eubank Sr, Kessler, Bika (same Bika everyone praised Ward for beating years later lmao).

Yeah, Joe is arguably top 3 EVER at 168. You've got RJJ (who juiced), Toney (who juiced), Ward (low blow Doctor), and Canelo. Calzaghe beats all of them prime for prime with drug testing and any referee but Tony Weekes.

 

Him beating those guys is pure guesswork though

I could just as easily say Benavidez is top 3 at super middleweight
Nobody to my knowledge has ever praised Ward for beating Bika.

 

Ricky’s skills never matched his ambition.

Whereas Joe’s ambition never matched his skills.

Ricky did everything in his power to get Floyd in the ring.

Joe was just content with Warren and the WBO.

 

In Britain, many, many people have Joe down as being the GOAT, or a top 20 ATG fighter.

 

Their resumes are simply incomparable. On every level.

We also have to address the champions they fought, which is always highlighted by their fans.

There’s obviously a big difference between beating reigning champions, and guys who were champions at some point.

Floyd’s fans are far more guilty of this to be fair.

But it really looks better in print, than in reality.

Joe only beat two reigning champions to my knowledge.

Eubank hadn’t even had a win at SMW in 3 years.

Jones hadn’t had a top level win in 5 years.

Woodhall also wasn’t a champion.

Neither was Reid, who lost either side of fighting Joe.

 

Really?

That’s a big call.

I don’t think that, but I think that Carl would have given him a far better fight than what most people think.

The Kovalev fight is hard to predict for me. I think it depends how confident and aggressive Joe would have been.

Kovalev was a bully.

People can say that Andre got lucky and then hit him with some low blows, but I saw him physically and psychologically systemically break him down. And nobody said that Kovalev was faded or badly faded beforehand.

It’s a very tricky prediction though, because IMHO, he’d never have moved up to LHW to have faced him like Andre did.

His actions during his career have convinced me of that.

 

One of the main reasons that Lacy was favoured, is simply because Joe was still under the radar of the American’s at the time.

Joe won a vacant belt against a version of Eubank who’d not fought at the weight in 2 years, or had a win there in 3 years.

Yes, he still proved to have had gas left in the tank, but it wasn’t some great win, apart from for Joe personally.

 

They were champions at some point.

Not when he fought them.