Joe Calzaghes win over Hopkins

Calzaghe won the fight because Hopkins stopped fighting after the 5th.

 

Yes Hopkins surprising continued success definitely adds greater significance to Calzaghe's victory. While Hopkins was clearly past his prime when they fought Hopkins is still a top P4P fighter despite his age.

Hopkins is now easily Calzaghe's best win by some margin and should Hopkins do the unthinkable and beat Dawson, which for me would make him undeniably the top light heavy it would add even more to Joe's legacy.

 

Yes to an extent, Hopkins was still past prime and gassed and I thought Hopkins won as did about half the fans, Calzaghe looked pretty silly and ineffective for the most part, Hopkins looked negative

 

Horrible fight.

If we are accept it as a straight Calzaghe win, yes, it's a good result. But I don't think Hopkins' subsequent work has done anything much to enhance it ..... because, IMO, Calzaghe always appeared a bit better than the likes of Pavlik and Pascal anyway.
Hopkins' win over Tarver still stands as his most impressive at 175, IMO, and that was the way I viewed Hopkins at the time he fought Calzaghe.
So Joe always had that credit .

All of it seems a bit hollow when I actually view the fight though.

 

If BHop takes Dawson, it becomes a pretty terrific win. He becomes the only guy to beat Hopkins during this round of lightheavyweight asskickery. Beating Dawson makes Hopkins one of the premiere 175ers of this era.

As it stands, its still damn good W. Its JC's only against an elite, top fighter alive still doing his thing.

 

I'm rewatching it as we speak. the general forum is boring me that much this fight seemed like an appealing alternative.

upto round 5 and so far I have hopkins 3-1 up. I'll post my full rbr when I finish.

 

yeah i think hopkins beat joe therefore it's he who get my credit

Hopkins-Calzaghe

1: 10-8 clear hopkins round with the knockdown to boot.
2: 10-9 hopkins wins the round based on clean effective punches and effective aggression.
3: 10-9 hopkins again landing the cleaner shots and having the more effective aggression.
4: 9-10 good display of ring genralship by calzaghe as he pretty much bossed the round.
5: 9-10 very good jabbing by joe off the front foot to take the early part of the round, coming off lsightly better in the latter exchanges.
6: 10-9 aside from a good left landed by joe at the start of the round he was quite soundly outboxed by hopkins on the back foot.
7: 10-9 joe misses far too many punches and the only meaningful punch is landed by hop at the end of the round as he stuns joe.
8: 9-10 hopkins nullifies most of joe's attack on the backfoot but fails top land anything significant himself aside from a flashy combo at the bell
9: 10-9 brilliant defensive display by hopkins landing some very good clean counters in the process.
10: 9-10 hopkins takes a breather after going down from a dubious low blow and the finesse of his earlier counters seems to abandon him.
11: 10-9 again the finesse of hopkins earlier work isn't there but this time he seems to edge the inside exchanges frustrating calzaghe.
12: 9-10 quite a scrappy round with joe winning it on ring generalship as his aggression cancelled out b-hops defence.

115-112

 

1 thing about round 10, I thought Hopkins actually landed the better punches even though he cheated to get the breather, you may completely dock him the round for the ring generalship of having a breather though imo

 

it was very hard to score and yes even though it became more of an inside brawl at this point an argument could be made for nard, but them last 3 rounds an argument can be made either way imo.

the whole going down thing gave joe confidence and yeah ring generalship was the main differenc ethere, as it was in too many of the rounds that joe won because his aggression was anything but effective.

 

At the end of Round 7, Hopkins head butted Calzaghe which lifted his head, and Hopkins followed up with a quick right which knocked Sugar Joe off balance. That whole cheating sequence can be disregarded.

He also shamefully stole Round 10 after that breather, during which Calzaghe had lost focus.

 

so swap 7 and 10, outcome is the same.

 

Had 7 and 10 both for Joe.

 

10 and 11 could easily go either way. round 7 really would have been an even round had hop not clocked joe at the bell.

 

"the hit and not getting hit flashy stuff that casuals like to see" :huh Sarcasm?

 

Very ugly boring fight.

It must be said, Hopkins won.