Now, obviously this fight was much closer than Toney-Jirov, but the way people score the fight reminds of that one. In that fight we had one man (Jirov) throwing more punches, but with much less power and with much fewer clean blows. Like in that fight the HBO crew, particularly Lederman, gave all the credit to the fighter that threw more, and very little to the one landing the accurate, damaging shots. Now, there is a difference of course. There was much more contact in Toney-Jirov than in Hopkins-Calazghe, but the difference in scoring philosophy was much the same. Which does one prefer, activity or achievement? Calzaghe landed far fewer scoring blows in my opinion, so the question becomes quantity vs. quality. If this was an amateur bout Calzaghe would have clearly won, but this is prizefighting, the hurt business, and I was very impressed by the quality of Hopkins work, including quite a few terrific body shots. All the petty discussion of the "white boy" comment, and the bizzarre argument that the low blow, that was CLEARLY low, makes me think many people were predisposed to argue against Hopkins. Still, close fight, not at all a robbery, just an indication of one's scoring philosophy.
? Jirov-Toney was a war Calzaghe-Hopkins was a pathetic display of boxing. Bernard hugs and throws 1 right hand a minute,fakes low blows and u got Calzaghe just outworking him and thats it.
It WAS an ugly fight, but anyone who knows boxing knows that it was an ugly fight because of Bernard. Calzaghe fights are usually very fast paced and action packed but Bernard doesn't like that kind of pace. Calzaghe did what he had to do to win and that's all you can do when one guy is there to spoil the fight. Joe himself admitted it wasn't a great showing. If it's gonna be ugly, you might as well win. Imagine Calzaghe vs Dawson/Johnson/Jones/Pavlik/Tarver,Taylor. Great fights. Now imagine BHop vs the same people. We've seen Tarver/Jones/Johnson. Not great (although the Jones fight was interesting but it was 15 years ago and Hopkins is a very different fighter now). Styles make fights and Hopkins is HORRIBLE to watch these days. That isn't Joe's faiult.
a lot of the time joe was actually moving in after his punches into hopkins clinch, smothering his work. Although Hopkins did most of the clinching, Joe could of stepped off every now and again and had more success, after he had thrown his initial punches
Body shots? What body shots? Since Lampley didn't mention them, I'm sure they never landed. Honestly I'd have to watch Toney vs. Jirov again to see if I agreed that the rounds were as difficult to score (I remember James virtually taking minutes at a time off, so of course rounds where he was taking a complete siesta went to Jirov), and also, when a knockdown happens at the end of a fight, there tends to be less disagreement when that fighter wins on the cards. But really, the flow to Calzaghe - Hopkins was nearly nonexistent. Toney and Jirov kept working on the inside, Hopkins and Calzage were just tying each other up.
Toney v Jirov was a classic bout that forced me to raise my arse off of the padded goodness that was my seat to cheer at the sight of such spirited pugilism. Joe v Hop was no such affair. In fact, it had me sunken down into that padded goodness that was my seat searching for some opaque object to shield mine eyes from the horror, the horror. I understand where you're going and you've written an otherwise sound post but please do not make such ill-comparison again. Thank you.
