Joe Calzaghe vs. Andre Ward

Not enough pop from Ward to get the job done. Calzaghe's workrate and angles would overwhelm him, and Joe's not out of place in a dirty fight, either. Ward's at his best when he dictates tempo, and he wouldn't be able to get that done vs Calzaghe.

 

except Calzaghe didn't fight tall, didn't employ a real jab that Ward wouldn't slip or counter over. Hell Calzaghe took 6 rounds to figure out how to beat the basic 1-2 from a "prime" keesler, he couldn't handle anything Ward threw at him, all the problems that shot B-Hop and Roy give him in the beginning would be problems for Calzaghe against Ward, except Ward isn't going to tire out and will be able to adapt right with him, in whatever he does, which is mainly trying to flurry with those slaps and win on points.

No Joe C. can not do all those things and he doesn't have more stamina, which is an odd charge to levy seeing that Ward does not have stamina problems. The problem with your Calzaghe work rate assertion is that Ward has the ability and defense to not only negate most of his work, but to make him pay for his flurries and consequentily shutdown his workrate, ala Floyd.

 

Even Oaktown couldn't steal this fight from Calz. It's not as close as some might think, or hope.

The key is that Ward could not hurt Calz, or make Calz respect his power. If he could, maybe you have a Hopkins-Calz situation, or possibly even slightly better for (a younger) Ward. But he couldn't, and so you would have 12 rounds of Ward wearing Calz as an extra shirt and a clear UD for Calz.

Could Calz stop Ward?

Maybe, if he tried. Ward does have a shaky beard and Ward does tire. I could see a potential TKO, but an easy Calz UD is the more likely outcome.

Calz has fought guys like Ward. This isn't Kessler stepping into a new scenario in Oakland. Calz likes to fight dirty, or can easily fight dirty when he wants to. Ward would not appreciate Calz' skill in that regard.

Ward has good speed. Not as good as Calz', though. Particularly in combination. And Ward does not come close to the workrate and movement of Calz. Ward can stick and move, put he can't pop-in, pop-out like Calz can.

 

Calzaghe almost lost to Robin Reid. Needed 4 rounds to figure out Kessler. Couldnt land clean punches against Hopkins the best he could do is rack up activity points.

How exactly is Calzaghe going to blow out Ward? Considering Ward is just as fast, probably stronger, crafty, can fight on the inside and outside, young, and not afraid to mix it up?

Name one fighter on Calzaghe's resume who he dominated on the level of Ward. :bart

 

LOL. What makes you think Ward couldn't make Joe C. respect his power? He made Miranda, Bika, AA, Keesler, and a host of others respect his power. Fact is you are really speaking out of your ass, I'd also point out at the elite level Joe C. was not a KO artist himself and going against Keesler and AA (harder hitters than Joe C) he was more than able to handle their power when they landed, you really have no support for your argument.

 

hopkins UD anybody at super middleweight. joe UD anybody as well.

 

The best they have is a shot B-Hop, watch them yell about how B-Hop wasn't out of his prime because of the Kelly Pavlik and Jean Pascal fights.

 

:good Well said.


Calzaghe is really overrated. Basically his 3 best wins are Lacy, Kessler and B Hop. And the only one he really dominated out of those 3 was Lacy. Kessler won 3 rounds of him and is far inferior to Ward. Hopkins basically landed the cleaner harder punches on him and the only reason CAlzaghe won was because of activity. He landed few if any clean punches on Hop.


Its a close hard fight either way. Anything else is stupidity.

 

Yep this is a Hopkins who lost to Taylor X2, struggled with Winky Wright and got a draw with Pascal. A Prime B-Hop pushes each of these fighters **** in.


And still CAlzaghe couldnt land barely anything. Hopkins knocked him down and put a gash on his nose and wobbled him atleast 1 other time.


Ward has everything. calzaghe woud probably edge this due to his activity. But stop Ward? Please. :tired

 

Ward ain't in his prime yet, so we can't really answer for sure.

But right now, i would say Calzaghe UD. Two reasons being Ward's lack of pop and he isn't a great counter puncher. And you have to be able to counter when fighting Calzaghe because he's going to give you so many chances to do so. Calzaghe on work rate but it would be close IMO.

 

The problem is that Ward needs to sit down on his shots in order to get the whip-like leverage he gets when he puts some sting on them. Being able to do that against AA and being able to do it against Calzaghe are completely different orders, and Ward doesn't have the countering skill to get the most out of the pop he does have. None of those guys have close to the mobility and upper body movement that Calzaghe had, and Calzaghe leads far better than all of them offensively.

Andre's progressing very well, but I think Calzaghe would frustrate the hell out of Ward based off what I've seen so far. Abraham was landing the jab on Ward when he lead with it- Calzaghe would eat that opening up, and he's got better offensive tools to follow it.

 

Couple things:

* Kessler and Hopkins both hit harder than Ward. Joe had to respect their power more so than he would with Ward. Particularly in the case of Hopkins

* Robin Reid was no slouch. He was like 27-1 when Joe fought him. There was something weird around that fight, too, that I dont recall now. I'd have to look it up

* Activity points is exactly how I think Calz wins the fight; that's how I think Calz easily handles Ward. That's what I said in the post.

* I'm not saying it's a 11-1 fight. Maybe 8-4, 9-3. The two keys for me is Ward cant match Calz' workrate and Ward's power would not keep Calz off of him. If you can't keep Calz off of you, you're toast.

Heights/reach:

JC --- 5'11" --- 73"
AW -- 6'01" --- 73"

Ward doesnt even have a reach advantage here. Hopkins was 75". Not good.

 

No, actually I'm not.

Ward does not have good pop. That's fairly-well understood. I'm not making this up, at all. Did Abraham respect Ward's power? No, he didn't. That doesn't mean that Ward cant catch you with a good shot here or there, but you're not concerned with letting your hands go because of what you're getting in return. That's respecting power. Ward just doesn't have that kind of power.

Calz, on the other hand, has a supreme chin. When he has been dropped, it's because he didn't care at all and went walking right in. Why does he do that? Because he knows that even if he gets hit, he's getting up.

You put that chin together with Ward's lesser power, and you have a scenario where Calz is going in-and-out all fight against Ward and racking up points. I'm not saying Calz would do the "Hopkins Hip Shake" or the "Jones Clown Show" stuff at the end, but this would not be his toughest fight, either.

Ward would likely dirty it up and perhaps make the scores slightly closer, but it wouldn't matter in the end. Like the Hopkins fight.

 

It would be nice for Ward to sit down on his shots, but he has shown he doesn't have to, because his game doesn't rely on power but on tactics, angles, and traps.

Being able to do what, throw a jab? Ward has been able to make his jab an effective part of most of his fights except the extremely ugly ones, trying to act like Calzaghe presents avenues to negate his jab is a ridiculous assertion on its face. The same with your assertion that he wouldn't be able to counter him, if a shot RJJ and B-Hop were able to counter and walk Joe C. into punches I have no doubt Ward could do the same.

Ward is progressing and hasn't reached his full potential yet, I agree, with that being said objectively speaking as a person who has seen Joe C. fight to the best of his ability, I see nothing that Joe C. brings that a smart young fighter can not handle, especially Ward.

As for Abraham landing the jab, he was landing a few jabs in the beginning but there was a reason he stop throwing it and it wasn't because he was tired, it was because he was scared because Ward was going to his body when he jabbed.

 

And Ward is stronger the Kessler, faster then Kessler, and just as crafty as Bernard Hopkins. Hopkins didnt make Calzaghe look bad because of his power and speed, he made Calzaghe look bad because unlike the C level fighters Calzaghe fed off most of his career he was multi-dimensional and he confused Calzaghe with Calzaghe not being able to lounge in amatuerishly like he usually was able to with lesser fighters. And you'r acting like CAlzaghe is some sort of power puncher. You think his slaps are going to deter Ward?

Robin Reid was never above B level and Calzaghe struggled.

Ward doesnt need power to keep Calzaghe off him. He has speed and timing. Which is far superior to punching power. Ask Floyd Mayweathr and Hopkins if you need punching power to keep a fighter off you.

Whats Calzaghe going to do when Ward uses his superior strength and starts roughing him up on the inside?

You think 2 inches in reach advantage is why Hopkins made Calzaghe look like a fool? Please. :rofl