Joseph William Calzaghe vs. James Nathaniel Toney

Toney by decision he beat elite Southpaws like Nunn, Jirov, Johnson, and he could deal with Calzaghe's workrate as the Jirov fight showed.

 

Toney by decision

 

50/50 fight for me. An argument can be made that both are bad style match ups for the other.

Calzaghe liked to stay in range to utilise his astonishing stamina to outwork his opponent and he was most vulnerable to a straight right counter, Toney's best punch.

Toney had an excellent defense, iron chin and was an extremely skilled counter puncher, but he had slow feet. He excelled against opponents who came to him and tried to bully, outwork or overpower him. He could struggle against speedy, mobile, long range boxers.

Calzaghe and his Dad weren't great at setting game plans, Joe started most fights the same. I see him beggining the fight trying to throw with volume, landing little clean and getting countered with some hard straight right counters. A Toney KD early would be a distinct possibility.

What Calzaghe lacked in strategic planning ahead of the fight, he made up for with an instinctive ability to adapt mid fight. He approached his fights with Kessler and Hopkins as if they were Lacy, I.e. stay in range and throw in volume, and those fights began to unfold much like the above paragraph. He then adjusted, boxed on his toes, darting in and out, too fast to be countered often. I think his advantages in both foot and hand speed over Toney would be enough for him to successfully deploy the same adjustment vs him around the 4th or 5th round. Toney was sufficiently good to keep it competitive throughout and still win at least a couple of the remaining rounds.

I see a close, debatable 12 round decision, where regardless of the official decision, some fans would argue Joe's greater volume won him the fight, whilst others would argue Toney's fewer, but cleaner, harder and more effective punches, won it for him.

 

Gt match up. Toney pushes him and Joe has to up his game.
Split decision for Joe.

 

Toney has the greater handspeed, would you agree?

 

If you struggle that much with a past prime 40 plus Hopkins and arguably even lost that fight, your chances of beating a prime Toney are not all that good. just common sense

 

No, I think Calzaghe had the better hand speed.

 

For me Toney beat a much higher level of opposition, and whilst Calzaghe does look good regarding eye test. Theres a difference looking good vs the likes of Veit, Lacy. And beating top opposition like McCallum, Nunn, which Toney did is a whole different ball game.

As I said Toney beat a prime Nunn who is as good as Calzaghe at his best, and beat plenty of other elite Southpaws one of them "Jirov" threw as many punches as Calzaghe could.

 

Whichever of you and Blade that haven't voted on the poll yet, should do so, it would close Joe's early lead. Tbh, I'd expect to see a close poll, with Toney slightly ahead, by the time the voting has finished.

 

there are a lot of British fans here.And Joe and Lewis tend to get a bit overrated because of it now

 

I'm British and I'm not a fan of Calzaghe but I respect his skills, but I don't let nationality or whether or not I like a fighter cloud my judgement.

I'm picking Toney based on his success vs elite Southpaws, and his overall skill set that he brings.

 

Mxy understanding though is that this thread is about Toney at his best (Barkely, Littles) vs Calzaghe at his best. A single fight not a trilogy.