Kalambay issuing a minor masterclass to McCallum

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This is probably something of a familiar one to most of you on here, but I thought I'd bring it up anyway seeing as this is the first time in eons that I've actually bothered to sit and score a fight round by round. So, for your info:-

Kalambay - rounds 1,4,5,6,8,9,11 and 12
McCallum - rounds 2 and 10
Even - rounds 3 and 7

McCallum had been out of the ring for nearly 8 months, was rustier here than an old poker and underestimated Kalambay to some considerable extent, but it doesn't alter the rather accurate perception that Kalambay was always going to be a bad match up for him. I've seen people score this -understandably - as a shutout for Kalambay before, but I thought that Mike pressed the action enough in the rounds that I believe he either edged or level-pegged at the times when Kalambay seemed to coast. I might have been overly generous though.

Regardless of McCallum being some way from his best, this nevertheless stands out as one of the best wins of the last 25 years in my book. Kalambay was a magnificent old school slickster and it was never more evident than here. His jab, counterjab, arm-positioning and all-round leg and upperbody movement never allowed McCallum to break him down in the latter's typical fashion. There were times in Kalambay's career when his offensive output let him down and could have conspired strongly against him in h2h matchups against certain styles, but I reckon that a lot of great middleweights throughout history would have found themselves on the wrong end of a result against him.

 

Aaaaaand......bump

 

I dislike Mayweather to an intense degree, so I'm probably not the best person to ask. But even trying to be objective, I'd probably still say yes. He at least proved his skillset against a near-prime atg in dominant fashion, something that Floyd has never done to my eye.

Would you say that Kalambay's skillset was superior Raskolnikov? I think it's quite hard to judge, but Kalambay at his absolute best was, to me, the better fighter.

 

I should add that I'm quite a big admirer of McCallum too. This is the sort of fight I wouldn't enjoy watching too much were I not an admirer of Kalambay in equal measure.

 

Obviously you can't entirely dismiss a bloke getting leathered in the first round of a unification fight, but I always look at that fight as something of anomaly. A slightly freak result, though Nunn at his best (although I've never been that big on him) might never have been the easiest proposition for Kalambay.

Saying 'Kalambay was better than Floyd' on the general is probably the equivalent of wearing a burkha at a BNP convention while burning an effigy of Oswald Mosley.

 

Aye. He was relatively old too before he was able to make a name for himself, and he largely had to do it against the Grahams and McCallums who others were less willing to face.

He had some good post-prime performances though in the McCallum and Graham rematches and the schooling of Collins.

 

Just to clarify, I've never posted on the general (or really viewed it) due to lack of interest in the current scene, so I'm actually quite ignorant to what the general attitude might be.