Joe Calzaghe vs Antonio Tarver

If calzaghe had made the jump to 175 at a younger age for this fantasy fight then I’d favor him to outpoint Tarver. But the 37 year old version of Joe who was decked by Hopkins and Jones, no..

 

As someone experimenting with body building and composition more and more, I have to say Jones' great muscle gain and loss prior to Tarver is complete and utter Paul Bunyan bullcrap.

At 40 years of age I was a cut 178 lbs on Christmas Eve morning and today, I'm at 190 lbs and still fairly cut. In fact the visible difference is null.

Did I gain 12 lbs of overall muscle in 5 days ? Absolutely not. Did I gain 12 lbs of fat in 5 days? Absolutely not.

What happened? I slacked on my low carb diet over the holidays. Carbs hold water. So I put on a little water weight, and I can easily cut back to 178 in a few days of restrictive carb eating without sacrificing any muscle or strength or even stamina. If I was to undergo some serious athletic test, I could carb out a bit and get some extra energy.

Scale manipulation is easy. True body recomposition is very hard and takes a long time but that's hardly what boxers are doing.

Jones might have put on a bit of muscle cause he didn't want to be pushed around, but most of his miraculous 25 lbs gain...was in reality about 10 lbs of water and maybe a couple lbs of lean muscle...maybe. Jones looked more swol as they say against Ruiz..

 

We will have to agree to disagree Magoo. Hopkins beat Tarver and 2 years later, Calzaghe beat Hopkins. But, honestly, I have never been one of those guys that was impressed with Tarver.

 

Tarver was 38 and took Hopkins lightly. He never would’ve beaten Hopkins, but still.

 

Wasn't that after filming Rocky Balboa? I think he'd put weight on for the role.
He looked terrible in that fight I agree that Hopkins wins either way.

 

Yeah, that was after Rocky. Tarver generally didn’t have a high workrate and tried to set traps that Hopkins wasn’t very vulnerable to, so his style allowed for Hopkins to make it his type of fight, but he also wasn’t at his best for Hopkins. Hopkins obv was old but he was special in that regard.

 

I always thought with Tarver that his output was poor at the best of times. He was clearly skilled just not sure he was dedicated to his conditioning. I remember in the Hopkins fight him chatting to his trainer suprised that he was behind despite getting clowned and not doing anything. Hopkins was good that night though had his gameplan and stuck to it.

 

He had high output as an am but it faded as a pro, particularly against guys who didn’t come straight to him.

 

Calzaghe rather easily. He was a better fighter and overrall more consistent..

 

I just named you a bunch of boxers that trumped him rather easily in the amateur ranks.
Your not going to be called better then someone if that person has 400 wins and only 4 losses. Just not possible.
I would say Davis and Leonard were better in the amateur ranks then Breland.
Davis beat everyone and Leonard was very dominate as an amateur. And BOTH won the gold.
Moore maybe too. He was a heck of an amateur really outstanding. He's still legendary when people talk about the New York Golden Gloves.
Breland was great too but he also benifted at times from people being too scared to do anything against him based on his reputation.

 

Take it to the proper thread, bro.

 

You really think that what you did and what Roy did is comparable?

You doing what you want in your spare time, compared to an athlete needing to hit at a certain weight at a certain time, whilst in camp preparing for a huge title fight?

Really?

What was bull crap exactly?

He was in the mid 190’s with a low percentage of body fat.

There was a visible difference between his physiques at HW and LHW.

Yes, there was no 25 pounds of muscle. That’s true. But he had to get from a solid 196 pounds back to 175 for the weigh-in. His fight night weight was recorded at being 185. So he lost around 10 pounds of muscle. And he only had about 2 months to do it in.

I don’t know if you’re being serious or not. But whilst you were chilling out, he was in training camp.

You can’t even compare the two scenarios.

What are you disputing anyway?

The difficulty of it?

You don’t think he was exhausted?

What?

 

Tarver, I think is stronger, just as durable and I believe bigger than JC, so it's no easy night, but it probably goes the dance, with a Tarver Points Win... I'm not a huge fan of either, but I think Tarver's strength is the overall factor.

 

I would have favored him, if his hands held out!

 

I respect ypur opinion but Tarvers output was poor and he isn't knocking Joe out.
Wide UD for Joe.