Virgill Hill vs Joe Calzaghe

You are way wrong about Maske. I don't feel like getting into an argument on Christmas but some of the crap posted on here is insane.

You are completely wrong about your statement regarding fight IQ. Maske and Hill both had crazy deep amateur backgrounds and were very intelligent fighters. Calzaghe relied more on his speed and athleticism. It's ok if you think Calzaghe would win but some of you kids don't know what you are talking about when it comes to this sport.

 

I`m 44 and all Hill really had was a jab because that`s mostly all he threw and right hands, 1-2, Calzaghe had better punch variety and threw more combo`s, Hearns wouldn`t have beaten Calzaghe, Hill was poor v Hearns, merry xmas.

 

One things for sure, Hill was better LHW than a shot Roy Jones Jr and Bernard Hopkins.

 

What does punch variety have to do with effectiveness? You are sadly mistaken. Again, I'm not saying Calzaghe wouldn't beat Hill but your comments about Hill and Maske not being complete fighters and guys just relying on athleticism is completely wrong.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that you were not even watching boxing when Makse won gold in 89' or win Hill won silver in 84'. These guys competed in a time when boxing was a huge international sport and the competition was fierce.

Stop speaking in absolutes especially when you don't know what you are talking about. Merry Christmas!

 

He said Hill was "a mediocre fighter". Perceived punch variety and quality of opposition was not in the equation and had nothing to do with the comments.

 

merry xmas.

 

I watched Leonard knock out Lalonde in `88 and that Ray could have won gold at the `88 olympics if he was allowed to compete at 175 in that games and I didn`t see any light heavies fighting in `84, the fist light heavy fight I ever saw was Hearns destroying Andries in `87 and that Tommy would have beaten the Hill that won the 84 olympics and he would have destroyed any other light heavy at that olympics pretty easily too.

 

He was easily to hit than the B-hop that fought Joe and wouldn`t have floored Joe either.

 

Hey same to you Mark!! Have a good one mate.

 

More crap from you. I can tell you don't know Angel Espinosa was but I guarantee Leonard isn't beating him at Lightheavyweight in the Olympics. Beating Donny Lalonde at a catchweight is not the same thing as beating a world class guy like Hill or Maske. I'm done discussing boxing with you. I'm trying not to be rude but from where I come from talking about things in absolutes when you don't have a clue is frowned upon.

 

You have to be great to convincingly beat prime Kessler and a still great Hopkins also convincingly, why is it that you don't rate Calzaghe? Do you not think that maybe he is doing things in there that may be hard to see? Small movements at the right time to draw a punch so you can counter or measuring the distance to know what they can throw, it is small things like that what separates the world class fighters from greats, people I see of today's game that do this is Tyson Fury, Crawford, Canelo, Billy Joe Saunders, Usyk, Lomachenko, Devin Haney, Lomachenko probably won't go down as great because he lost twice, but Lopez had every physical advantage over him including hand speed and Lopez knew how to use those advantages, he made Lomachenko go back and kept him on the end of his fast straight punches and Lomachenko couldn't get into punching range to use his technical ability

 

Joe didn’t use a great variety of punches.

He overwhelmed guys with volume where he could be very scrappy at times.

Most of Joe’s competition was also mediocre.

He fought 30 plus fights against domestic and European level fighters.

 

Yet he wouldn’t move up to fight any of them.

 

I do rate Joe. Very highly. He was a great fighter. But it is in no way shocking for anyone to have picked Hill over him. Joe only fought twice at LHW. Now I personally think that Joe could and should have moved up to LHW years earlier than what he did. I think that he’d have been a great LHW. But he only did it at the very end of his career. Now I could absolutely envisage Joe beating Virgil. But saying that Hill was just mediocre and that it’s shocking to pick him, is completely ignorant.

Joe didn’t convincingly beat Hopkins. He threw twice as many punches, but most of them were scrappy and ineffective. Hopkins landed a lot less, but the majority of them were clean and far more effective.

It was quantity vs quality.

 

Calzaghe started taking over his fight v Kessler is the 6th when he threw 25 punches that weren`t jabs, compare that to Hill`s 1st round v Maske where both guys were just waiting to counter or throwing the odd lead here and there because they didn`t know how to set up their shots by feinting, Hill did have a good rear hand to the body just like Calzaghe did, but in that first round v Maske he only threw 10 shots that weren`t jabs because he was too negative etc.