sorry calzaghe your resume is weakest ever.

Kessler at supermiddle better than Trinidad was at middle in 2001? I don't agree.

Don't think Joe Cal did before their fight either.

p286 "No Ordinary Joe: The Autobiography" by Joe Calzaghe & Brian Doogan:

'...nor do I see anyone around who can beat me, even Kessler who's largely untested. He's fought good fighters, ex-titleholders like Eric Lucas of Canada and Australia's Anthony Mundine, who came into boxing from rugby league, but he's not beaten or even faced anyone exceptional.'

Aside from the obvious pot-kettle-black evidence, Calzaghe is saying precisely the opposite of what many have been saying about Kessler in this thread, that the guy was not proven quality at the top level and that it was not a 50/50 fight.

Going into the Hopkins fight, Tito Trinidad was 40-0 (34), and his resume included Oscar De La Hoya, Pernell Whitaker, David Reid, Oba Carr, and Yori Boy Campas, had won world titles at three weights and was rated top 3 P4P by The Ring.

In his last two fights he had unified the light-middleweight title (only 6lbs below middle) by becoming the 1st man to defeat and stop Fernando Vargas (20-0) then jumped up to middleweight and showed no difficulty at the weight by utterly dominating and knocking out world champion William Joppy (32-1-1 record, 5'9", 72" reach, weighed in at 158 1/2lbs) in 5 one-side rounds.

I gave you Joppy's physical stats to compare that career-long middleweight and middleweight world champion to Trinidad: 5'11", 72 1/2in reach, weighed in at 159 1/2lbs. Trinidad also weighed 1 1/2lbs more than Hopkins at the weigh-in for their fight. He was clearly a full-sized middleweight with KO power and coming into the fight as a future Hall of Famer, a unified light-middleweight champion on an undefeated hot streak.

With Kessler, there is simply no comparison.

 

p253 "No Ordinary Joe: The Autobiography" by Joe Calzaghe & Brian Doogan:

'An undefeated record means nothing if there aren't good names on the record.'

Career suicide.

 

Lucky he's got plenty of good names on his record really. Could have been embarrasing.

 

Trinidad's accomplishments at WW and JMW mean less than nothing in this debate.

When I said Kessler was the better win, I meant he was the better fighter at the weight being fought at, and that he'd beat any of Hopkins's wins. I wasn't saying he was more accomplished than Tito, the majority of his accomplishments being at lower weights.

In a head to head matchup, Kessler beats Tito worse than Winky did.

Watch them fight on film and analyze them, that's all I ask, we're not comparing resumes for obvious reasons given the discrepancy in natural weight. Kessler is clearly a better boxer than anyone Hopkins beat around the weight he fought them at. At 168 he easily beats any of them.

 

Says SUGAR RAY LEONARD in the preface to 'No Ordinary Joe: The Autobiography' -

'With his looks, his humility, his natural charm and his ability, he has the potential to become larger-than-life in the American sports market and I'd really like to see him do this. The top fighters around his weight- Jermain Taylor, Winky Wright, even Bernard Hopkins'

Who knows more about boxing, SUGAR RAY or RonUK???

Oh that sugar is so sweeeeeet...

 

I believe that the Trinidad of 2001 at 160 was a more dangerous, difficult opponent than the Kessler of 2007 at 168, for all the reasons stated. It appears Joe Calzaghe agrees Kessler was unproven and untested at the time of the fight. Of course it is easy to say because Kessler gave Calzaghe more trouble than Tito gave Hopkins, Kessler was the better opponent, but the difference actually is that Hopkins '01 was an all-time great master giving the virtuoso performance of his career, and Calzaghe lacks the natural ability to ascend to that height.

 

He has two good names. Kessler and Lacy. Two good names- of course not great.

Hopkins was still a good name despite being well past his prime, but it wasn't a good win, if you watch the fight you'll see why.

Byron Mitchell is the best of the rest, and a Chris Eubank well past his best as well.

All that in only 11 years as a world champion?

I refer you back to Calzaghe's own quote.

 

Trinidad was NOT a better fighter at 160 than Kessler at 168. Oscar De La Hoya certainly wasn't, whoever said that is totally absurd. How the hell do you get outjabbed by Felix Sturm, go Dick Turpin on his ass and then expect to be considered on the same level as an elite jabber like Kessler at the higher weights?

Show me what Winky-Wright has done at 168 and above and I'll tell you he's a better win than Kessler.

I think Mikkel has an awful lot of people worried :yep

 

Dont talk bollocks.

They were both VERY entertaining fights, nothing shameful about either of them. And I seem to remember him giving as good as he got, rather than just taking punishment. Fighting at 30lb above his best weight that was a seriously impressive performance not eveidence of some major decline. May I remind you he was winning the second fight and the first really could have gone either way.

Anything to try and descredit a fighter who just happens to be one of Calzaghe's opponents.

Frankly I'm bored with your bull**** and will never respond to you again where Calzaghe or any of his opponents are concerned. You are so blinded by hate and full of **** on the subject its not even worth debating with you.

 

Well I disagree with you about Calzaghe in general. He doesn't have the best resume, then again neither does Hopkins, but both have proven their worth in different ways.

Both are exceptional fighters, you have only to watch them fight to see that. Calzaghe's not as technically skilled, but he's just as big a dilemma to face in other ways.

I think Kessler was the better opponent because, quite simply, he was the more skilled opponent. Tito may have been more highly regarded at the time, but he has showed us all his limitations more than once. Dangerous fighter, but tailor-made for Hopkins the same way Corrales was tailor-made for Mayweather.

Kessler on the other hand, accomplishments aside(as he still has a lot of career to carve out), is one of the most technically skilled boxers in today's game. I can't see any way I'd favor Tito over him, or any of Hopkins's wins.

 

At last! An end to your non-sensical ****ing garbage cluttering up threads I join in. Thank God. If you look back through anything I have ever written on Calzaghe, all you will see is genuine opinion substantiated by evidence. You may disagree with those opinions, but I never insult Calzaghe and I never express dislike. That is not called hate. It's called criticism. And note, I never criticize his ability (except to note that it is inferior to that of Hopkins), I have always said he has great talent, just that he never used it properly.

And I mean the Eubank-Thompson fights were sad in that it was sad to see the end of the career of a great British entertainer. Eubank fought manfully and was eventually battered down, I was rooting for him the whole time, hence the sadness.

 

Erm, the phrase was "being undefeated doesn't matter if you have no good names", or something to that effect. Do you have problems with reading comprehension?

Hopkins, Eubank, Kessler and Lacy were all big good names to anybody with even a moderate knowledge of the sport.

 

Exactly. He had to be doing something right to have not lost for like 16 years and 21 defences.

 

Kessler was an excellent win and by far the best on Calzaghe's resume. All I'm saying is CALZAGHE HIMSELF believes he was untested and unproven when they fought.

Trinidad was proven, I think him in 2001 at 160 was better than Kessler has ever proven himself to be.

I do not think Winky Wright for Hopkins was a better win than Kessler for Calzaghe, I'll admit that, Winky was in awful shape and fighting at the wrong weight. Had Hopkins beaten him at 160 a couple of years back, it would have been a far better victory, Winky is a top 5 P4P guy who was on an 8-year undefeated streak and had been in with some quality guys. 'The best defence in boxing'. What was Kessler? A very good current super-middleweight, he had not proved (and still hasn't) to be anything more.

 

He did do something right- never face any elite level fighters. Those are just numbers, numbers mean nothing. Do you know who Sven Ottke is??