Joe Calzaghe cheesed his way to "greatness"

Maybe start a thread.

 

You have to understand the landscape back then.

Back then, America was boxing’s superpower.

Although Joe was a great fighter, he was under the radar of the U.S.

Because he held a lightly regarded WBO belt, which wasn’t one of the main organisations back then, where the majority of his opponents were unknown, non world level fighters.

So he had no real profile outside of Europe.

The biggest fighters within his weight classes were in America.

The majority of the world’s best fighters were in America.

As were most of the organisations, as well as the biggest promoters and TV networks.

Joe spent the majority of his career under the radar of the American’s, which is the reason why he was such an underdog against Lacy in 2006.

American fighters very rarely have to travel. And even moreso back then.

Everything was set up for them back home.

 

Ward did it fair and square. He face the best there were, with one clear exception in Bute. And well, there was also the lineal 175 champion Stevenson, but I doubt that fight would ever have materialized.

 

He beat a few world champions including Juergen Brahmer who went onto win a belt.

 

He did. But literally only 2 in his entire career.

Again, he was also knocked out by Brahmer in the rematch, and he got knocked out by a non world level fighter in Inkin.

So was he really a genuine world level fighter?

Go and look at his record.

Just 2 world level wins in a 50 fight career.

Why would Joe have gotten credit for having beaten him?

 

True.
Different time, different era. Whether fighters liked it or not, in the 90s \ early 2000s America was where the sport - and often the best boxers - were based. Lots of Brits recognised it and went over to prove themselves; Collins, Benn, Lewis, Naz, Hatton. Joe did not, until those very end fights. I honestly believe that those last few fights - against ageing legends - (and a selective unbeaten record) mask an otherwise low quality resume. I've never said Calzaghe was no good; he has a few excellent wins. Only that It's hard to rank him because he didn't do enough in his career overall to make a clear case he's an ATG (and that's on him).

 

Great post.

 

I think he’s fairly ranked as a borderline ATG level. He beat Hopkins who was old but still world class, why would Calzaghe need to fight Pavlik when he beat Hopkins who beat Pavlik easily?

His few good wins against prime fighters along with past prime Hopkins and Jones were good enough to put him quite far ahead of someone like Crawford for example.

Easy to forget Joe was over the hill himself when he beat a prime undefeated Kessler and Lacy.

 

Say what you want about him but Super Joe was supposed to get decapitated by Lacy and gave him a career ending schooling instead.

 

A fight against Pavlik was available to Joe, before Hopkins went on and fought him.

Joe considered the fight, but took on Roy instead, despite the fact that he’d said that he’d be disappointed to fight Roy, as he was a shot fighter and had been for years.

I wouldn’t say that Joe was ahead of Terence Crawford.

He wasn’t over the hill for Lacy and Kessler.

 

That was a true masterclass.

And Joe deserves huge credit for the win.

However, he was such an underdog, simply because even in 2006, he was still under the radar of the American’s.

Now we know why that was.

It was because he’d spent years with a low level belt, where he’d fought mostly low level opponents.

 

This is why Joe gets severely underrated by a lot of American fans. And is also why everyone in America thought Lacy was going to smash Joe to bits. But the truth is, Calazaghe was always an excellent fighter but he had to deal with a lot of injuries that made him change his style slightly and very much affected his confidence. He almost pulled out of the Lacy fight until his dad gave him a talking to.

 

He was just under 34 for Lacy and 35 for Kessler, he was past his physical prime put it that way.

Hopkins was basically a freak like Archie Moore and still world clsss in his 40’s.
I don’t see that it would have added much to Joe beating Pavlik, at least he got a big name with Jones.

Calzaghe would have been competitive with Hopkins for sure at any time in their careers, in fact I think I might pick him to beat him. Calzaghe was a machine who didn’t stop punching, he’d always have been too busy for Hopkins.

Calzaghe would have been competitive with Roy as well

 

Pavlik was hot at the time.

Beating him would have been a very credible win.

Hopkins put in a great performance against Pavlik, but I think it wasn’t celebrated that much, as it was at a C-W, and Hopkins had just lost to Joe.

 

Regardless of your opinion of Calazaghe, I'd recommend watching Andre Wards interview with him on YouTube. Very interesting.