"Joe Calzaghe would beat prime Michael Spinks"- Max Kellerman

I think a case can made that calzaghe beats any lhw in history

Include Marciano in that list

 

it would include Will Mcintrye.

 

:rofl

Calzaghe got dropped and barely beat Hopkins, who was 43 and a career middleweight.

Guys like Spinks, Moore, prime Jones etc would beat him easily.

 

no ordinary joe made a career out of extracting souls from their yank host's

the name doesn't matter......spinks, hearns, leonard, hagler,toney

calzaghe would starch these american bums inside 6

 

You see, now this is the stuff that brings all the head shaking.

A case can be made for Calaghe beating any LHW in history because he beat a 43 year old guy, who made his bones at MW, and beat him in a disputed decision, and a shot former great LHW, who had been knocked out multiple times before and after their fight? A fighter who Calzaghe himself said was shot, years earlier.

Ridiculous.

To me, regardless of what one thinks of his resume or what could or couldn't have been, here is what Calzaghe showed over his career; he was better than Mikkel Kessler at SMW, and he was slightly better than Bernard Hopkins at LHW.

Neither of those accomplishments would lead me to believe that makes him able to beat the likes of Spinks at LHW, who legitimately could pose problems for any LHW in history. Not even getting into Moore, Foster etc.

Congratulations, you've been sucked in by the rhetoric.

 

I cant even imagine what Spins would do do Calzaghe.
Slaughter comes to mind.

 

Dwight Qawi would beat the **** out of Calzaghe, never mind Spinks.

 

Honestly, Calzaghe's hardcore fanboys really are so deluded it's laughable. At LHW Calzaghe was no better than 43-year-old, past prime, career MW Hopkins, who Taylor before and Dawson after, both beat far more convincingly. Past it Hopkins and totally shot Jones (who after lasting the full 12 with Calzaghe got stopped in 1 by Danny f*cking Green for christ sake) both dropped him too.

But in the simple and twisted minds of the Calzaghe worshippers this all adds up to up to Saint Joseph beating any LHW in history, even Marciano

 

46 and 0 ****s!deal with it.

 

In both Taylor fights Hopkins lost on workrate but out-landed him both times and practically matched Taylor for punches thrown in the second fight. Both fights were close and the argument could be made that either man deserved to win.

Calzaghe out-punched and out-landed Hopkins by a large margin - threw and landed respectively almost double the amount Hopkins did - but many didn't land clean and Hopkins seem to have the more effective offensive before he move into total spoiling mode after the 4th round. It was thus a close fight that difficult to score and the case could be made that either man deserved to win.

In the second Dawson fight Hopkins threw and landed only slightly less than his opponent but once more lost out to the workrate and energy of a younger man in an ugly fight. It wasn't an easy night for Dawson but he was a deserving winner.

Against all three men Hopkins proved his worth on the top stage, inbetween fights against them he beat some significant names to further prove that worth inspite of his age, and he continues to do this today.

Past-prime Hopkins might have been but shot he was not. Trying to pass him off as insignificant, as some kind of sub-par fighter at Light Heavyweight, seems ungrounded in reality.

 

Hopkins wasn't/isn't shot, he is still World level by but he is well past prime and no longer elite, he has been since around 2005, prime Hopkins wouldn't lose to Taylor, Calzaghe and Dawson.

As for punch stats, those compubox numbers mean nothing, only a complete idiots pays attention to them. Calzaghe only landed a hand full of real punches all fight, I don't need someone bashing a button to tell me different from what I can see with my own eyes.

Anyway, my point was that getting dropped and scrapping a highly debatable SD against past prime Hopkins is hardly a measuring stick for beating any LHW in history and Rocky Marciano.

 

I agree that Calzaghe didnt really accomplish all that much at Light Heavyweight, and I'm not trying to make the case that he definitely would beat everyone who ever fought at that weight, but I think there is a danger in talking him down too much.

Calzaghe was a very good fighter, possessing of a good chin and excellent recovery power, he was quick on his feet, quick and swarming with his hand, had a very unauthodox style from a southpaw stance and had inhuman conditioning, work-rate and stamina. He's not going to be an easy fight for anyone.

Using his close, debatable and difficult win against Hopkins - who was widely recognized as the greatest fighter in his weight division and one of the five greatest fighters in the world at the time - as some kind of proof that he wouldn't be able to hold his own against past-fighters from that division just doesn't strike me as a strong argument.

 

The only way you would get Joe in the ring with Spinks is if you fooled him into thinking he was fighting 45 year old leon spinks. Plus get Joe to walk into the ring first, give him a minute to do his heroic posing that he was so good at when about to beat up yet another regional weakling.


And then oh yes watching his grinning mug transform into a look of abject gibbering terror when he saw prime Mikey walking down the aisle towards him would be priceless. flinging himself into the corner post repeatedly in a last ditch attempt to feign an injury before Spinks climbed in.

 

100% spot on

 

Yes, but no disrespect to David Banks, but it's David Banks.

I don't think there is even a question that his power was not as fearsome above MW as it was at MW.