More than any other fight on this forum I saw people really try to figure out what they thought was going to happen in the fight before it even happened. People always do that before a big fight, but in most fights there comes a point when every fan just says "Whatever we'll see on fight night." I haven't been on this forum long, but it seems to me that to the average poster on this forum it was extremely important before last night for people to try to convince those that felt otherwise that THEIR fighter was going to win. The points I saw repeatedly were: -Calzaghe will beat Hopkins by activity -Hopkins will easily land his straight right leat and counter -Hopkins will limit Calzaghe's output a lot -Calzaghe will be able to adjust to Hopkins's style In my opinion ALL of those points were true in the fight. -Calzaghe won the fight by throwing those kind of 'Calslappy' punches in flurries several times each round, not that I'm knocking it because he pulled it off. -The only shot Hopkins really landed was his right hand, and considering he's credited for landing 116 power shots I would say that probably 80 of those were right hands. -Hopkins did limit Calzaghe's output significantly, moreso in the beginning of the fight. He only threw 707 punches last night! This is a lot for someone like Hopkins, but Calzaghe regularly throws over 1000 punches in a fight. -Calzaghe DID adjust to what Hopkins was doing and took control of the fight. I think both fighters all things considered looked pretty good. Of course Calzaghe didn't knock Hopkins out like many fans were ranting about.. but anyone with a brain knew that wasn't happening to begin with. And many who thought Hopkins could have won, weren't really wrong... Hopkins could have won the fight as is obvious by his ability to land right hands on Calzaghe and even knock him down once. Can anyone think of another fight where predictions from both sides came true like this?
good points all. Though I had hopkins winning 117-113!! (I picked calzaghe to win :nut ) Though he came off better in pretty much all the exchanges.beat Calzaghe to the punch etc.
If you had Hopkins winning 117-113 then you were pulling for him and went out of your way to give him every round that was even remotely close. Hopkins did very little except pop shot and hold to try and minimize exchanges. He got way too much credit from that one judge.
Well... I think Hopkins was the only one that landed any decently effective punches in the fight by far. Though he didn't land many. Heres my thinking on the numbers though... though I don't think Calzaghe's punches were very effective at all, he just landed TOO MANY of them to score it for Hopkins. For every punch Hopkins landed, Calzaghe landed nearly 2! If the numbers had been a little closer I could buy saying "Well Calzaghe landed more punches but not enough to make up for the fact they weren't effective." But when you land TWICE as many punches as your opponent, you deserve the nod. Its an interesting fight (I'm watching it again right now). What I think is most interesting is that as good as Hopkins was at exploiting some openings (the straight right hand), he ignored others (never threw to the body, never threw left hooks after his right hands!). With Calzaghe... he saw that he could out flurry Hopkins... and he did. BUT, Calzaghe could have landed some real good punches on Hopkins. Calzaghe adjusted to be able to land his flurries, but there were simple things he could have done to actually land some good shots on Bernard and he didn't do it. The only power shots he actually tried to land were left hands every now and then. Calzaghe has GOT to have better legs than Hopkins at his age.... but did he use them? No. If he had truly adjusted to Hopkins's style, he should have used his feet to keep Hopkins from being able to rush in with his right hand and his head down. And if he did this, he would also have been able to easily catch Hopkins coming in! I think what the fighters didn't do is very strange....
