Peak Joe Calzaghe Versus Peak RJJ and B-Hop

Why troll, when you can debate?

Tell us all why you’d have fancied Joe to have won.

 

Trolling Classic is like shooting fish in a barrel with a stick of dynamite ...

Yeah OK, so seriously then.

I'll buy the idea that RJJ had lost more than Calzaghe by the time they fought.

However, I don't buy the idea that Jones was 'shot'. I think Calzaghe would always have been a difficult stylistic matchup for RJJ because Jones relied so much on his speed and Calzaghe was as fast or faster than him. We did see the fight. RJJ got murked. Could a tip top version of him have turned it around? Maybe. But any of those fanboys claiming Jones would have made easy work of Joe need to calm TF down and put away their bong.

 

Come on now.

You buy the idea that Roy had lost more than Joe?

If you’d followed Roy’s career, you’d know that the version who Joe fought, didn’t even resemble the version who’d fought in his 90’s prime.


You don’t buy the idea that he was shot?

Joe himself literally said that he was.

He was certainly shot at the very highest level.


Joe wasn’t faster than Roy.

Roy had faster hand speed, faster foot speed, and much faster reflexes.


Roy got murked?

Roy couldn’t deal with Joe at that stage. He didn’t have the legs that he used to have. He didn’t have the confidence. So he stood back with a high guard, whilst Joe had the confidence to unload huge volume on him, as he knew that he wasn’t a threat.

If he’d have done than against a prime Roy though, Roy wouldn’t have covered up. He’d have instantly fired back at him.


I don’t think it would have been really easy.

I think that they’d have been cautious and gone feint for feint in many of the rounds.


Again, the biggest thing that you’re overlooking, is Joe’s comments and actions from over the years.

You can’t realistically favour a guy, when the guy in question didn’t pursue the fight in real time, and he’s doubted whether he could have beaten him. And that’s alongside his struggles with much, much lesser fighters, at every stage of his career.


So I can understand you having given Joe a very realistic chance.

But I can’t understand how you could in any way have favoured him.

Again, prime for prime, Joe didn’t do anything to have been favoured.

 

I think Calzaghe underrated himself quite a bit. A prime RJJ would have had a fair bit more speed, and maybe that would be the decider. On the other hand I'm not a fan of RJJ's lower output approach to Calzaghe who would pretty much always have outworked him. Trying to potshot or catch a hyper-twitchy guy like Joe with big single shots is not the right way to fight him imho. I think RJJ would have to dig deep and go into the trenches and risk exchanges with Calzaghe to make his power edge count and that's not really how Jones liked to fight. Now sure, there's the argument to be made that Jones' iffy chin wouldn't be so iffy against Joe's sub-par power, and maybe it would work out for him ok.

I favour Calzaghe (maybe not by much, but still) because I feel that he'd just have to do his natural thing whereas RJJ would have to change a few things in his approach to deal with zaggers. Fighters have done this in the past, sometimes with great success (Hagler / Hearns for instance) but in my opinion its a bit of a lost cause making definitive statements on what would happen, simply because we're trying to evaluate too many aspects at once. I saw the matchup of their older versions which gives me a kind of baseline for evaluation, so that's what I have to work with.

 

BCS8,

Joe absolutely underrated himself. He didn’t believe in himself as much as what he should have done. Frank Warren has spoken about that a few times over the years.

Again, Joe had the opportunity in real time to go all out for Roy. Yet he didn’t. So he wasn’t confident, which makes a massive difference here.

Roy had a low output in most fights, as he made many of his opponents really cautious.

Their usual outputs dropped significantly in some cases.

I don’t agree that Joe would have outworked him. He’d never seen anybody on Roy’s level before, who had more speed and power. And who was far more accurate and elusive.

Again, I don’t think that’s he’d have had the confidence to have gone all our against a prime Roy. Because Roy wouldn’t have stood static with a high guard, like he had to do in 2008. He’d have fired back with rapid combinations, and they’d have had a Byron Mitchell type shootout, which would only have favoured Roy.

Their match up can’t give anybody a baseline.

It was a gun shy Roy with diminished reflexes and punch resistance, who was stood there with a high guard taking shots.

The only reason that he pushed for that fight is because he was approaching 40, and it was a great pay day, for a guy who at that stage, had everything to gain and nothing to lose.

The fight tells us nothing.

If anything, it shows Joe in a poor light.

Because that version of Joe was coming in off of the best wins of his career, whilst producing the same shot output. It was basically the same version who’d fought Kessler and Hopkins.

Whereas the version of Roy didn’t in any way even resemble the prime/pre-HW versions of him.

Roy hit him with his forearm because his timing was out.

But imagine a prime Roy dropping him with an uppercut. He’d never have let him off the hook.


Thanks for your opinions. I don’t agree with them at all, but I appreciate your honesty.

I watched both of their careers in full. I studied them.

Roy in his prime was operating on another level entirely.


Again, you have the right to your opinion. But to me, a fighter capable of beating Roy Jones in his absolute prime, would never have struggled with Robin Reid and gotten dropped by guys like Byron Mitchell and Kabary Salem.

He just never did anything in his career in order for him to have been favoured.