***The Official FAREWELL JOE CALZAGHE thread!***

So, Joe has officially retired.

This is a thread to let anyone say anything they want about Joe and his decision on this significant day for boxing.

So let the lovers come on and love, let the haters come on and hate, and let the rest of us try and wave goodbye with some genuine closing remarks on the man's career.

My own personal opinion is that Joe has made the right decision. I genuinely believe he did not want to fight Bernard Hopkins again because he escaped with the decision once and did not have any intention of putting himself through another torrid evening of trying to land on the Master Boxer, but even then there were some good fights out there for Joe if he wanted them. A fight with Dawson would have been great, and a great win for Joe's legacy had he triumphed, and a domestic clash with Froch would've been huge in the UK. A rematch with Kessler would've been a good one too. There were at least two or three big fights out there excluding Hopkins, but the fact is that if Joe didn't feel the hunger to go for those fights anymore, he is quite right to walk away. He has the zero intact, he can quit now and match the recent efforts of Floyd Mayweather and Ricardo Lopez in retiring undefeated after a long and successful career.

I know I have been (and I always will be) critical of Joe, but to get to 46-0 is an achievement. Putting opposition to the side for a minute, that record does prove considerable consistency and longevity, and for that credit must be given.

Credit also must be given for being one of the only men of recent times to properly clean up a division. OK, he never held all 4 titles at one time, OK, it took him 9 years even to unify, but Joe did prove himself the clear and undisputed number 1 in the supermiddleweight division with the Kessler win - a rare thing in boxing nowadays and a great thing that can only be admired.

Right now, on the day of his retirement, I think it's fair to say Joe Calzaghe is one of the top 15 fighters of his era, a borderline top 100 fighter of all-time, and one of the top 10 British fighters ever.

Did he have the ability to fly higher than this? In truth, we'll never know. Even the Welshman's most ardent fan would admit that his general standard of opposition for the 9 years from 1997-2006 was, at best, mediocre, and at worst, shockingly bad. His fans protest that this was all his promoter's fault, but I can never ever accept that to be true. Some fighters will accept a couple of **** opponents once they become champion, many great champions have done so, but I refuse to believe that any fighter with a heart and a pair of balls bends over and accepts dull, routine, easy fights for NINE YEARS. His fans will no doubt attack this part of my thread, but I couldn't care less, there's just no way Oscar De La Hoya would've accepted mundane WBO title defences at the Staples Centre for 9 years till he was a veteran before he moved his ass and upped the ante, no way in hell. He would've put his foot down and demanded better comp or he would've found a new promoter. Joe Calzaghe did not have an iron contract for 9 years, and that's that. For me, that was one of Joe's greatest crimes/mistakes, and unless Enzo builds a time machine for him, that will never change and it will always hurt his greatness/legacy.

His fans would argue that he had the ability of a Jones or a Hopkins, but after watching all of his fights from Eubank till Jones, I just never seen it - and believe me, I tried. So many times after arguing with guys about Joe on here, I went and watched some of his better fights and tried to see the skills that were spoken of. I never did. I seen a guy who was a very, very effective boxer. I seen fantastic handspeed, exceptional stamina and workrate, a good chin, decent adaptability/versatility, and decent bravery/fighting heart. But I never ever saw brilliant skills or true star quality. The only time I ever watched Joe and was really truly impressed by his boxing ability was the second half of the Kessler fight. That was the only time. Half a fight in a 46 fight career. That was the only time for me that the guy showed brilliance against a real top-level opponent. Yes, he was spectacular against Jeff Lacy, but Lacy was not a real top-level opponent, we all know that now, and some of us who had seen his fight with Omar Sheika before the Calzaghe fight knew it then. Yes, he got the decision v Hopkins, but that was not a particularly effective or impressive performance by Joe. I, like many, thought he lost the fight by a point, but I cannot see how even those who thought Joe won can have thought it was an effective or impressive performance. His workrate carried him to an SD against a 43-year-old who had visible stamina issues, but he did not have the skills to penetrate Hopkins's defence and land any real clean and significant punches. Other than those three signature wins, there's nothing much there. A win over a semi-retired and years-past-prime Eubank (surely the most overrated and misremembered win in recent boxing history), a good win over the decent Byron Mitchell, and the rest is filler if we're being perfectly honest.

I am not going to use up too much space talking about the Jones fight as I'm sure most are familiar to the point of bored stupid with my thoughts on it. Calzaghe wrote in his autobiography in 2007 that he didn't fancy fighting Tarver or Johnson because all they had done was beat up a shot Roy Jones. He thought a win over this version of Jones was worthless, and criticized Tarver and Johnson for sparking the guy. A year later, Calzaghe came out in front of the cameras and lied to fool his own fans into believing in the legitimacy of a fight with Jones in order to line his own pockets. Jones was a legend who had come roaring back versus non-top-10-ranked comp at lhw, and this was a superfight. His fans fell for it en masse, and cheered while he danced around like a knob and slapped around the bloodied corpse of a once-great fighter. The whole thing left an absolutely evil taste in the mouth.

Could Joe have lived with a fighter the standard of Jones in his heyday? I genuinely believe that he did not possess the skills. He would have been outclassed and beaten handily had he fought Jones or Hopkins at any point between 1997 and 2003. Joe was a very effective fighter in his division, but a guy who goes to an SD with Robin Reid, goes to points with Rick Thornberry and Miguel Angel Jiminez, and gets floored and hurt by Byron Mitchell is not going to defeat peak Jones or Hopkins IMO. I just don't see what others seem to see in Calzaghe that makes his fans think he could. I can only attribute it to the smoke and mirrors effect of annihilating tomato cans and having a zero.



HOWEVER, I can end my personal farewell to Joe by reiterating that I think he was a very very good fighter. The best supermiddleweight ever in terms of achievement and longevity. Borderline top 100 OAT. One of the top 10 Brits ever. I think his resume may depreciate in value as time goes by and the status of someone like Jeff Lacy fades until he is remembered more like a Charles Brewer than a Mikkel Kessler, but as of this moment, I believe Joe deserves his place alongside some brilliant fighters of this era, fighters I rate him roughly on a par with, guys like Shane Mosley, Felix Trinidad, James Toney, Winky Wright, Kostya Tszyu, Juan Manuel Marquez, and Ricardo Lopez.

Joe Calzaghe - Farewell! :hi:

 

Very good post, Exactly my sentiments :good

 

Happy retirement Joe! You`ve had a great career man