Was Calzaghe's REIGN at supermiddle over rated?

calzaghe had an easy night with kessler....why all the fuss

mikkel only landed two decent shots and joe took them easy !


and joe had just been in a WAR with manfredo :hey

 

Remind us please of all the "elite in their prime fighters" that Abraham fought.

 

Joes reign at SMW is overrated, yes. But CERTAINLY not because of his win over Kessler.

In fact that was Joes best win (he didn't beat B-Hop in my book), and his best performance. He beat a much better Kessler (yesterdays Kessler was rusty as hell), and he did not use dirty tacticts to do it.

 

21 defenses of the least prestigious of the 4 world titles. 3 of those were defenses of the world championship at the tail end of his reign. He never got a unification with his nemesis Ottke and subsequently failed at getting unification bouts with numerous other title holders. 1/2 of his defenses were against garbage whilst the other 1/2 were against good quality but no elite fighters. His only 2 defenses abroad were against a scrub in Denmark and a rematch in Germany against Veit whom he previously knocked out in 1 round. His record leaves alot to be desired but longevity is often underated compared to jumping through the weight classes looking for ideal opponents.

 

No, he beat different generations of fighters and beat guys that Ottke should have lost too, to punctuate his reign at the weight.

That and the fact that when he stepped up against difficult opponents, he still did the business.

I think we'll always regret that Calzaghe didn't "do more" with the talents he had, but the guy has had one of the best careers in the history of boxing. I don't care who you are, you get 20+ defenses and go fight in a hostile land and still get the result against an ATG frustrater, you're doing alright.

 

The unification debate is one used solely by people who don't know the full story.

Ottke was never going to get in the ring with Calzaghe. Calzaghe even offered to fight in Germany for Expenses + 1 Euro and was turned down. So Calzaghe made a career of handing beat downs to fighters who should have got the decision against Ottke.

When he had a chance to unify, he unified.

The fact remains, he's one of the few fighters of this era who held all 4 belts in his weightclass without being beaten.

He then went up and beat the Lineal in the next division.

You don't need to dig deep to realise how that career is great. But again, great doesn't seem to be enough with Calzaghe's talent - people wanted him to be All Time Great, not just great.