Was Joe Calzaghe a small super middleweight?

I get that the Brits support their guys. But they are backing the wrong englishman...

 

No he was a natural SMW/LHW. He spent almost his entire career at SMW.

 

"Joe's willingness to fight Why did he wait for Roy to get KO Ed then in order to fight him ? After he said Jones wasn't that good any more "

He said to his kid Jones wasn't that good any more because his kid was worried. If you was in the highest grossing fight of your career and your kid was worried about you getting hurt would you say to them "Yeah, I'm gonna get a beating son, pray for me..."
Also, I'm getting sick of some of you haters knocking Joe Calazghe.
Joe Cazaghe has the best resume in SMW history without question and he achieved that by sticking to his own weight and eventually unifying his division.

"Man this is once long ass defense for Joe

And Dawson was a journeyman wow UDKSAB"

I said Johnson was a Journeyman, Dawson just made a career out of beating a few. He got found out eventually by the first legit prime guy he faced, in Pascal.
Froch beat Pascal, Kessler beat Froch, Joe beats them all on the same night.

"So Froch was undeserving a guy who worked his way up to man do status? Let me guess Peter Manfredo was more deserving than Froch huh"
At that time yes, due to Manfredo's American appeal when Joe was trying to break America. Just for the LOL and how my boxing knowledge surpasses yours. you know Manfredo knocked out Froch in the AMS don't you?

"Speaking of DM you do know that Joe could,have fought him as well ..Bet he would have never stepped in the ring with him"
At what weight?
Why would Joe have to move up in weight to fight the guy at LHW when he had no desire to go to LHW in the first place?
There's weight classes for a reason. I'm one of Joe's biggest fans and will gladly state elite prime LHW's like Kovalev would knock him out. Johnson, Dawson, Jones and early 2000's Hopkins are not on Kovalev's level, nor DM's
Dawson always had that chin which was eventually going to get smashed, Hopkins, Jones and Tarver shared a weak division for 10 years.

 

Dawson beat Tomasz Adamek. He also beat old man Hopkins far more convincingly than Calzaghe did, so did Jermain Taylor.

 

theres nothing wrong with debating his size. I only have a problem with those trying desperately to rank him above the true smw greats.

for the record he was a big smw borderline lhw.

 

Calzaghe is a Welshman.

 

well, hes English by birth and childhood. from London.

 

He played the 'I'm a victim of circumstances' card his whole career.

He couldn't get the big fights he supposedly wanted earlier in his career. And do you know why? Because he was relatively unknown outside of the U.S. (where the potential big fights were) and he repeatedly defended the lightly regarded WBO title in a weak division.

Just look at his resume. Boxrec it. Look at who he fought from Eubank to Lacy. That's why he didn't get the big fights. He wasn't willing to go to the U.S. or the LHW division, and that's where the potentially bigger fights were.

Do you understand? He's bragged on numerous occasions of the number of WBO title defences he made at SMW. Yet all those defences are the reason why he never got bigger fights earlier. You can't brag of your number of WBO defences and then tell the public that you desperately wanted the biggest fights but you were unable to get them. Nobody with any boxing knowledge is going to buy that. He was obviously more than content to fight the Sobot and Salem's of the world. (no disrespect to those guys)

The fact is, he could have done a number of things differently. He could have left Frank, he could have gone to the U.S. much sooner than he did, he could have moved up to LHW much sooner than he did. Ricky Hatton left Frank, went to the U.S. and goaded Floyd into a fight and then fought Manny. Joe had the looks, the style, the arrogance, the heritage etc. His career could have been very different if he'd have had Hatton's will. Talk is cheap. Anyone can say that they want/wanted bigger fights. But actions speak louder than words. He can talk all he wants about how he supposedly chased Roy for six years, but his resume contradicts everything he's ever said. He could have gotten his due respect and recognition much earlier than 2006. But he didn't want it enough.

 

Yes. :nod

 

Who was going to pay a WBO champ of a weak SMW division, the 'Crown Jewels' to fight Roy?

The answer is - nobody was.

This was a built in excuse.

'If they pay me, I'll fight him'

But it was completely unrealistic. If he wanted to fight Roy in a huge fight for huge money, then he had to put himself in a position to make those things happen.

Collins? Get real. What on earth would Steve Collins have done with Roy in his 20's?

Roy didn't duck Dariusz, he just wouldn't go to Germany.

 

There's only one logical way to interpret that quote like Barry has mentioned. Using words like 'probably' and 'risk' tell you everything you need to know.

Joe would never have fought Tarver.

"I don't rate Tarver. Tarver's done nothing apart from beat a faded Roy Jones"

It was the same with Dawson and Pavlik. They hadn't done anything to warrant a fight with him. (Joe's words)

Yet he then admitted that he'd offered to fight Pavlik straight after Lacy in 2006. Yet at that time, Pavlik was an unknown NABF champ. Now in my opinion, he would have beaten Kelly easier than Hopkins. But he wasn't interested. He wasn't interested in Pavlik or Dawson, because he instead wanted to fight a near 40 year old Roy Jones, who Tarver had knocked out four years earlier.

That's how Joe worked. He didn't want Tarver, Pavlk or Dawson, because he didn't rate them.

Yet look at who he fought from Lacy to Eubank at SMW?

You can't give him a pass for not being at LHW. It's not the same as asking Froch to go to LHW. Because Joe is 6ft, and he walked around at 14 stone. For years I heard him tell reporters he was tight at the SMW limit, and he wanted bigger fights, and he'd done all he could at SMW, and he knew that he had to move up etc.

His fans just have to be thankful that he finally had big fights in the last 18 months of his career.

 

Before the Kessler fight he was interviewed by a magazine (believe men's health UK) where he said he walked around at 14 stone - 196lbs and cut down to 168.

He didn't look any smaller than Kessler-- Kessler looked slightly larger than ward and same as froch. So calzaghe was equal to these "solid" SMW's.

 

:think

 

Ilikeboxing, you are full of shyte. Calzaghe says front to your face, quoted, "I'm not chasing roy jones" and you still pretend he wanted roy jones...whislt joe pysses on your face by fighting A Nothernoone foryear after year after year after year after year. I guess you like the taste of it.

this is why you will be shortly going on ignore, because you write the opposite of the truth time and time again.

 

1. He wasn't just comforting his young son. He was telling the truth. He'd already dismissed Roy in his autobiography, and he'd laughed in a live interview that Roy was past his best, and that he'd be disappointed if Roy was to be his last fight.


2. He only has the best SMW resume, because no other great fighter stayed in the division for as long as he did.


3. What does it say about Joe's career, when he was forced to fight the runner up of a reality TV series, to gain some more U.S. exposure at 35? That was embarrassing. As much as I don't like Joe as a person, he was truly a great fighter. He was elite. And fighting Manfredo at his age was an insult. Or at least it should have been. But it was deemed necessary by Frank, because Joe hadn't gone to the U.S. earlier in his career.


4. Why did Joe have to go to LHW?

He couldn't unify with Ottke.

He said he wanted bigger fights.

He was tight at SMW.

He said he knew he needed to move up, because there was nothing left to accomplish.

It speaks volumes that after he couldn't unify with Ottke, he remained at SMW, even though Lacy and Kessler hadn't even done anything at that point.


5. Roy wasn't on Kovalev's level? What?


6. Hopkins, Tarver, and Roy shared a weak division for ten years?

What about Joe's SMW division from 98-2005? It was one of the weakest divisions in boxing.

General Zod gave one of the best descriptions of it, when he called it a barren wasteland.

The facts are, Joe fought mainly B-C class opposition in a weak division, when at any time, he could have moved up into a better one.