Nigel Benn/Joe Calzaghe how do there resumes compair?

Prompted by the Best Of Britain thread, where Benn, and Calzaghe appeared in various lists...

Nigel Benn/Joe Calzaghe how do their resumes compare?

Just to kick off...


Gerald McClellan is perhaps the biggest win on Benn's resume. McClellan was no 1 at middle, prime, and Ring magazine p4p no 8 at the time. Behind names like RJJ, Pernell Whitaker, Lopez, Trinidad. Joe's best win is probably Kessler - I would say Benn, has the edge there.


Agree? disagree? How does the rest of their resumes match up?

 

For comparison:

Kessler - McClellan
DeWitt - Hopkins
Eubank (prime) - Eubank (somewhat past prime)
Malinga - Lacy/Reid

Matching up their best names and results.

McClellan/Kessler is pretty close. Don't really have a problem if people pick G-man, especially in the context of the type of fight it was and the heart Benn showed.

I'd have Hopkins over DeWitt, any day.

Calzaghe beat a past prime Eubank fairly comfortably, whereas over the two fights I thought prime Eubank was pretty clearly superior to Benn, and had his number for the most part. I could never imagine Eubank knocking Calzaghe out.

Malinga is okay, on his day, bit inconsistent. You could match him evens with a number of Calzaghe opponents, Benn shouldn't have lost to him second time.

Benn has fought a lot of tough competition, but he didn't win them all - otherwise it would be no contest. As it is, its fairly even or at least up for debate.

 

Many people think that Benn beat Eubanks in the draw, and deserved the win (Heres a panel review of the fight at the time).

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*I have typed some of this before elsewhere, but will repeat it again; apologies. It is all fact from the Ring rankings, and not overly loaded with opinion*

The Eubank Benn faced was a totally different Kettle of fish from the one Joe faced. Eubank gave a good account of himself at cruiser afterwards, but his days at SM were long gone. He was also inactive for two years at the weight. His only fights during that two years were at LH; two matches against absolutely diabolical opponents (exhibition matches in the middle east). Eubank also lost all of his 5 last real competitive fights (his only career losses), one of those was to Joe.

Eubank wasn't even considered worthy of a top ten super-middle rating by Ring magazine at the time he fought Joe. In fact he hadn't been thought of by Ring as a top ten SM boxer for 3 years prior to facing Joe. Eubank in his prime rode high in the list for years, sitting only behind the likes of Toney, and RJJ. They simply believed that he had deteriorated to such a degree that they no longer thought him good enough to warrant an inclusion.

When you consider the limited names that made the Ring magazine ten at the time Eubank fought Joe - the likes of Henry Wharton, Joseph Kiwanuka, Vincenzo Nardiello; it really highlights how far removed from his best Ring magazine believed Eubank to be.


You could argue that Benn's Draw against a young Eubank, placed above him (and only behind Nunn, and Toney) in the Ring rankings is on a par with his Joes hard fought out win over an older, long removed Eubank.

As you say though, I too couldn't see Eubank TKOing Joe, but that was Benn's style. If he was going out, it was usually by TKO, KO, rather then a Point's loss.

Yes, you would have to take Hopkins over De-wit; clearly. Even taking into account Hopkins age.

What about Iran Berkley, how is that win rated?

 

Barkley is a good win actually, I had a mental block there. Seems to get discredited as he was coming off two losses, but they were decision losses to Nunn who I think was unbeaten at the time and Duran.

Problem is, following that he only got a points win over a shot Hearns amongst a few bums before going on a terrible run of form up at LHW and above

In any event, starching him in 1 is notable.

Oh yeah, and Barkley was coming off that eye injury that required surgery and had been inactive.

 

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Barkley fought Hearns, Duran (1989 Fight of the Year - Ring), Nunn, and then Benn, right after one another (in a row). He lost three of them, but that's some punishing series of fights, against crack opposition.



Benn's, Stateside, destructive early KO win over prime Iran Barkley (defeater of Hitman Hearns twice), V Joe's total boxing surgery of prime Jeff Lacy? :think



* Barkley picked up the WBC middleweight title, the IBF super-middleweight title, and the WBA light-heavyweight title. Lacy picked up the IBF super-middle title*

 

Lacy had nothing like the resume that Lacy had.

 

Aye? :huh :-D

 

Eh? If he hadnt fought at the weight for as long as he hadnt he would have been automatically removed. Nothing to do with someone judging him to have deteriorated so badly.

I have no idea what the ring top 10 SMW looked like then, but I bet the Eubank that fought Joe would have beaten a good few of them.

 

It would have been for a variety of reasons, inactivity at the weight would have been one of them (but he was pretty active when first excluded). He didn't make the 95 or 96, Ring rankings, and fought Joe in October 97.

Anyway the bottom line is that Ring, for whatever reasons, no longer considered him a viable top ten man at any weight, and hadn't done so for a fair time.

As I stated many people thought Benn beat a younger Eubank (sitting behind only Toney and Nunn), and believed the fight shouldn't have been called a draw.

Joe beat Eubanks, but the Eubanks Benn and Joe faced were two different beasts.

 

Nigel was asked what he felt about Joe Calzaghe.

"If Joe had been around with me, Chris Eubank and Steve Collins, he would have had some harder fights than he gets today," Benn told The Sun. "But I still think he would have come out on top. You've got to give it to him, what he's achieved, being an undefeated fighter for a decade takes a special fighter. He would have had a good fight with me. He'd probably have beaten me although he would have known he'd been in a fight with me. Don't get me wrong, but he slaps hard. And he doesn't go down. I take my hat off to him. Joe's a credit to boxing."

 

:deal

 

I think Calzaghe vs Benn would have been one hell of a war

I wouldn't like to pick a winner because I could see either emerging on top

 

Benn respects Joe, there is no doubt about that, it doesn't mean that Joe would beat him though. Eubank stated that Kessler is tripe; do you go by that as gospel as well.

That aside, have you seen some of the stuff Benn comes out with nowadays, seriously, its really out there. He's born again, and comes out with, what would appear to most, to be totally outrageous comments. Good luck to him though, he could well be right. Are you a born again Christian, do you believe everything Benn states.

Anyway, how about you compare resumes, which is what the thread was about. Not who would win in a fiction of someones imagination. How do you think Joe's resume compares to Benn's?

Honestly, when I started the thread I though that Calzaghe may well come out on top, but looking into it, Benn's two best wins are probably better then anything on Joe's resume. When your comparing two guys. one who wont even make the HOF, and the other will be a ATG, that's quite shocking, imo.

 

Benn could have and should have stayed at 160. He was a beast there, he lost a little something when he went to 168.