Should Calzaghe ever be forgiven or excused for 2001-2006?

Haye and Froch are making sacrifices to get the big fights so your excuses just look weak to me. Thease are the excuses of a fighter who thinks he wont win the fight. "I want more money" or "1 million dollars is not enough". Calzaghe should have just fought the gig names and took less money because once you beat theses guys you hold all the cards for your next fights.

 

The reason people should really be mad at Calzaghe is he lied during the whole Jones thing.In his autobiography,JC claimed that Jones was shot and an unworthy opponent because he was starched by Johnson and Tarver.Then when the fight was signed a couple of years later,he claimed that Jones was still great and this is the fight that would be the icing on the cake of his career.Essentially,Calzaghe lied just to make himself look better.Pathetic.

 

Ive said my piece about Ottke. He was a talented fighter, but the offer was there to fight ANYWHERE but Germany and he refused, and after the Reid fight, if you can honestly hold that against Calzaghe then what's the point debating.


At SMW or LHW the Johnson fight, i would have loved to see, i like him, he'd go anywhere and give it his all, and he's good enough to make it uncomfartable. But at SMW it's a dead cert, but I personally would have rather seen him fight him at LH either before Hop or after. Jones adds nothing but zeroes.


Please lay out How Calzaghe gets Jones in the ring before the summer of 02, I would love to ****in hear it.


Unless Calzaghe had a vision from god in 98, why would he change his direction for a Hopknis fight a division below him him? Outwith the path that was chosen and got him to the negoiating table?. Did he sense Hop would change his mind after the the fight was all but agreed in 02? Does a fight with Echols suddenly make Hop change his mind AGAIN, from first accepting 2.5 to demanding 5m$, to then agreeing to the original terms after spending so much time chasing, and demanding the earth from Roy Jones?.

How does the Euro WBO belt holder break up negotiations between 2 of the top 5 P4P fighters on the planet happen? Love to hear it?


What does beating DM bring to the table?

He beats the Euro fighter in DM that Roy couldnt make a fight with and then suddenly Roy forgets the Euro's he couldnt make fights with(Eubank,Benn,DM,GR). And suddenly Calzaghe is the one that Roy gets a hard on for and couldnt wait to get him over the pond?. Are you new to Boxing?. Resume aside, do you rate those fighters as better and easier for Roy than Calzaghe was??. Coz again, why debate if you do.

Tarver??. **** off. When??, lay it down in pure laymens terms coz maybe im slow.

 

Haye is making a sacrifice if you think making by far the biggest payday of your career a sacrifice

Froch is not half the draw that Calzaghe was and I'm not sure what the numbers are but his payday against Taylor will probably be one of the highest of his career, if not the highest

Funny you are saying that those are excuses for fighters who think they won't win the fight, but you probably defend Roy Jones for rejecting what would've been literally double his highest previous payday to fight DM in Germany

And apparently you don't have any harsh words for Hopkins for backing out of his fight with Calzaghe over money. Hopkins was the one who killed that fight, not Joe. The promoters refused to pay him what he was demanding because he is not a draw in the US or the UK

 

How can you say Jones never would have fought Calzaghe?He fought and beat Toney,who was a bigger name and more feared than Calzaghe.The fact is that once Jones was robbed in the '88 Olympics,he swore that he'd never fight abroad in fear of getting robbed by foreign,hometown judges.He has never,ever denied that in 21 years since.What about Joe's fear of flying until Hopkins turned 41 after being beaten twice by Taylor,and Jones turning 39,years after proving himself shot by getting destroyed by Hopkins ko victim Johnson and bigmouth Tarver?After saying Roy was shot in his autobiography,Joe certainly changed his mind about Jones once the fight was signed.Now he brags about beating a legend.Sheesh.And people wonder why Joe catches so much disapproval.Before he lied about Jones,I was actually a fan of his.

 

This misses the entire point

If Jones fought Calzaghe anywhere other than the UK, it wouldn't have been a big money fight. Calzaghe was not well known in the US. Jones could make equal money beating up Ricky Frazier and David Telesco. The guy did not take one true risk in his career post-Toney unless it was for a mega payday

Calzaghe equaled a high risk, low reward opponent for Jones compared to the chumps he fought between Griffin and Ruiz. People bag on Joe's competition but Roy's competition from Griffin II-Ruiz was a joke as too. But he was getting $5 million to beat up gatekeepers and scrubs, so why would he take $5 million to fight a relatively unknown Euro who was actually good?

Joe came to the US when US promoters actually made it worth his while.

 

The path to Otkke was simple. Become WBC mandatory like what Reid did and then win the purse bid to get the fight to the UK.

Johnson is easy and basically they should have fought but Calzaghe backed out 3 times although perhaps on one occasion he did have a legitimate injury reason.

Calzaghe could have gone to the states between 01 and 05 to challenge BHOP at SMW and just accepted less money. Clearly BHOP was not against the idea of going to SMW he just wanted a cool 5 mill which could have been generated from UK and US PPV (Hatton got 10 mill from UK PPV alone against Mayweather)!

The RJJ fight is harder to rationalise especially once RJJ decided on going to HW but given the fact that SMW was weak at this time JC could have moved up to get bigger fights.
Which leads me in to DM and Tarver. Same argument here if JC wanted to make a name for him self he could have challenged a well known LHW DM in 01/02 or Tarver after he KTFO RJJ.

 

I agree that RJJ should take a huge amount of criticism for not making the DM fight happen and BHOP was ultra greedy in negotiations with Calzaghe. If I was Joe I would have taken less money and fought BHOP in the states. This is a fight he could have won and would have put him in a strong position for future negotiations.

 

Didnt fight Mitchell when he was champ...... didnt fight Reid when he was champ..... didnt fight Brewer when he was champ...... didnt fight Lucas, Beyer, Otkke. He straight up ducked Glen Johnson and admited he wanted no part of RJJ at 175.

 

yeah no point in traveling when you're an american fighter, right? terrible double standard, he never traveled because he didnt want to acknowledge competition outside of his comfort zone.

sometimes he's such a *****.

the story from shotgun:

yeah, it's true. Hopkins isnt exactly a "fight anyone anywhere" kind of guy. He's difficult, moody, and insecure. And he just did it again with Adamek.

 

Fair enough, but I think there is a huge double standard that Euro fighters must come to the US at a paycut to make a name for themselves when they're already making as much as top flight non-PPV US boxers, while US fighters are defended for turning down huge paydays, even career high paydays, to go to Europe or elsewhere in the world

 

I agree there is a huge double standard. I respect guys like Cunningham and Winky because they were prepared to fight anyone anywhere.

 

yeah joe screwed the pooch on this one. he probably could have beaten a lot of dudes like DM, OttKe, Tarver, Johnson, Griffin etc... and could have fought a prime RJJ, and Bhop and a prime Chad Dawson towards the end, even in losing some oft hese fights his legacy would gain a huge boost for fighting real competition.

 

Simple?. Sven was never WBC Champ. But thats irrelevant bud.

Ottke wouldnt come to the UK, the purse bids didnt mean ****. Nor was that even asked, Warren had cards all over the World he could have put that fight on, but it wouldnt happen. If you blame Calzaghe then, fair enough, if you need convincing Sven only fought in Germany, there is no point us having a debate.


Yes it should have been done. Would have added nothing to Calzaghe's record then, but i do agree it should have been done.


You seem to be misinformed. Calzaghe did go to the US in 02, and a fight with Hop was arranged for SMW. Hop changed his mind.

And while I agree with Hop, how that can be put on Calzaghe is beyond
me.


I answered this in the first post.

 

I got the point,but what you should have written was that Joe overcame his fear of flying when US promoters actually made it worthwhile,and Bernard was beaten twice by Taylor and in his 40's plus Jones was shot, which is what Calzaghe admitted in his book.Are you sure you want to give out about Jones' competition?He fought young,strong Hopkins,Toney,Griffin,older,but still very good McCallum,Virgil Hill and Reggie Johnson.Do you really want to compare that list with Joe's choices?Maybe Jones opponents were chumps between Griffin and Ruiz.What about Joe's?If you look at their opponents,Jones' competition was far better.And who exactly did Jones duck?I already mentioned Jones' refusal to trust foreign judges,and it's not as if "fought outside of Germany only once in neighboring Poland" Micelzewski was willing to fight either Jones or Calzaghe outside of Germany anyway.I find it quite interesting that Jones catches abuse for not giving Hopkins a rematch after beating him convincingly,but Calzaghe never gave Robin Reid a rematch after getting a disputed decision even though not even Calzaghe's most ardent fans are going to say that Reid was better than Hopkins.