Was Joe Calzaghe a small super middleweight?

He got found out by Pascal Had it not been stopped on the cut Dawson would,have been the first man to stop him !

I can't believe you defended Manfredo Manfredo wasn't even c level here in the states !

Joe could have fought DM when he was chasing Jones could have moved up to lhw sooner ..

And Jones is not on DM 's level Wow continue your lack of boxing knowledge continues to prove your ignorance ..


Jones destroyed most of the guys DM struggled with. ..I'm

thinking your new to boxing

And have you seen Joe's chin journey men had floored him ..You Calzghe fans are too much you really make him out to be greater than he was ..

Dawson would have KO Ed him

Glen Johnson could have KO Ed him

Yet we know why he's never fought them..

And Hopkins Tarver and Jones didn't share a division genius

Hopkins spent the majority of his career at MW

And nobody reigned over a weaker division than Joe Calzaghe !

 

What about his natural walking around weight?

Joe wasn't at a disadvantage moving up.

 

In what way was Joe a small LHW?

 

"It's not about Joe wanting huge money. Of course he would have wanted huge money. Any elite fighter would have. I'd have wanted it if I'd have been a fighter. The point is, it was completely unrealistic. Because at the time, he was a relatively unknown, European WBO champ in a different division. "

Joe knew it was unrealistic also, due to his insistence to chase the fight, unless it was for big money. I'm not in the "Jones ducked Joe camp" here because they never crossed paths until they both ended their careers. There's a few idiots on here though who like to say "Joe ducked Jones" camp due to some of his statements declaring no interest in chasing the fight because Joe had his own destiny to fulfil. Joe never ducked Jones. The people who state that are blind, ignorant haters.

"Joe wasn't really a name back then. He'd hardly had any U.S. exposure back then, and his first fights that were shown were against Thornberry and Starie, which were criticised at the time."

A no name? No names don't organise $3 million contests. That's just Hopkins purse. Joe most likely got close to a million. He was a worthy opponent and an avoided one as Hopkins pulled out of his highest paid career day at the time.


"The WBO wasn't respected when Joe had the belt. It wasn't needed to unify a division, and it wasn't rated by the likes of the Ring magazine. The WBO also became a laughing stock back in the early 00's, for moving a fighter up the rankings, after he'd DIED."
I stopped reading after you mentioned RING Magazine, like that's a credible source of information.
That magazine currently has Crawford as its p4p number 8
Yeah, no American agenda there is there.
I'm expecting Wilder there soon.

"But what did he do when he couldn't get that fight? Go and have a look."

Continue to dominate the Supermiddle weight division, eventually unifying it and becoming the greatest Super-Middleweight of all time? Yeah, I saw it all unfold. It was beautiful and ATG worthy.

"I think you're dreaming.

Steve Collins would have knocked Roy out?

You can't be serious?

Roy would have beaten him easily. A great chin and determination can only take you so far. Collins lost his big fights when he was young, and his claim to fame was beating faded versions of Eubank and Benn. Did you see those fights? Did you see Eubank drop him? Roy would have had a birthday. Too much speed, power, skill etc. What on earth makes you think that Collins would have knocked him out?

Hopkins wasn't average back then.

Toney had weight issues, and he was prone to having off nights in a hectic schedule like Eubank. But he'd also beaten some great fighters. He was classed as one of the best fighters in the world in 1994, no. 2 by the Ring I believe."
The RING had Toney at number 2? Hahaha Is that supposed to be impressive?

Collins lost fights in a lower weight class when he was young. Hopkins lost to but he gets a bye for you don't he?
Collins at SMW was a different animal. If you deny that, than I don't think you watched the Eubank fights because he put a mental and physical beatdown on the guy at SMW at the time. Jones avoided him like the plague, on national T.V with a huge duck.

"How did he steal his belts? What happened to Dariusz had nothing to do with Roy. He beat Del Valle and Johnson for those belts, after Johnson had beaten Guthrie."
DM was given mandatories he couldn't fulfil right after winning the belts. That cheap move was orchestrated by Don King, Jones' manager.
Those belts soon went back to America. Ready for the hype job to take.

"It all depends on what the circumstances are.

Of course Joe had to leave Wales. The champs and the big money fights weren't going to go to him. It was he who had to chase the fights down. Do you think Hatton would have fought Floyd and Manny, if he'd have stayed in Britain with Frank?"

You seem to have a short memory. He agreed to fight Hoplins in America for lesser share of the event revenue. Who else was there? Ottke?
Ottke was a con-man. Joe was perfectly happy defending his belt at home, vs all comers. Eventually the patience paid off and Lacy and Kessler wanted to unify. respect to both men.

"Wlad vs Wilder has nothing to with anything. Again, it depends what the circumstances are. Wlad's currently in a position where he can dictate terms. He's the man, with all of the other main belts. He can stay in Germany for the rest of his career if he wishes. But he had to fight in the U.S. when he was younger."

He had to fight in the US earlier in is career because that's where all the belts where. Including Lewis's belt. After Wilder gets exposed and Joshua is holding a belt, he's got no need to fight in America. His fights will be on PPV and he'll sell out Wembley being a Londoner.

"You could say that Dariusz was the lineal champ at LHW. But Roy crushed the guy who he beat to be lineal, he was more dominant, he had a better resume, and he was classed as the best fighter on the planet at the time."

DM HAS a better resume than Jones at LHW.

 

http://www.boxingnewsonline.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/KovalevPascal.jpg

Joe is the same height as Pascal.
Kovalev is 6'0

Pascal is a small LHW

 

do those blind ignorant haters include joe calzaghe?

quote - "I'm not chasing roy jones"

 

It's not just about height is it?

He had a natural walking around weight of 192-196 pounds. (Joe's words)

He found it hard to make SMW, especially as he got into his 30's.

If you look at his height, reach, and his walking around weight, he was in no way a small LHW. Joe was a big guy.

 

That's sumfin Missus Gee would certainly be an authority on. :yep

Predictably, that went right over your head, didn't it ?

I was referring to your general obsession with the the Welsh-Italian.


And even belatedly, you haven't disappointed.


Eight posts in under four hours !

The man lives inside your head.


(But, unlike Missus Gee, metaphorically )
















.

 

This is the last time I'm posting a picture here to disagree with your statement that Joe is a big guy and should be a LHW, if that is the case, Froch should be a LHW.

http://e1.365dm.com/12/07/660x350/CalzagheFroch-3-_2794797.jpg?20120712215144

Everybody knows Froch is a career SMW.
Joe was. Moving up to 175lbs he lost some of his speed. That's why he struggled vs Hopkins and Jones.
Also in that picture above, Joe doesn't weight 180lbs never mind 194lbs

That's all there is to it.

This gym skipping Joe is 190lbs
http://www.welshboxers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/cleverly-calzaghe.jpg

 

Ilikeboxing,

And why did they never cross paths? Because Joe wouldn't leave the SMW division, even though he'd said he'd never beaten a great fighter, he wanted bigger fights, and he was tight at the weight etc. You don't need to be a detective to work out that he wanted nothing to do with Roy back in the late 90's/early 00's. Not only are his comments on record, but also his resume. He didn't want to fight Roy when it mattered, but he was happy to do so in 2008, when Roy was weeks away from his 40th birthday, and after he'd dismissed him as a threat on three seperate occasions. It's quite easy to see why he gets criticised.

The fight would have sold in Britain, but not the U.S. Yes, Joe was relatively unknown back then outside of Europe. He wasn't a big name. Joe fighting Roy or Bernard back then wouldn't have been big fights in the U.S.

I couldn't tell you the last time I bought a copy of the Ring. But it was highly respected back in the late 90's/early 00's.

Respected sports writers such as Thomas Hauser also ridiculed the WBO back then. Again, you could be the unified champ without holding it, and it was notorious for bogus rankings etc.

Did you not read about the Darrin Morris incident? He was moved up the rankings after he'd died. And as if Joe fighting all of those B-C class guys from Eubank to Lacy wasn't bad enough, only a handful of those fights were actually mandatories. He was far too good to be fighting those guys.

Forget about what he eventually did. That's not the point. I'm looking at what his actions were after saying he wanted Roy and Hopkins in 2001, and what happened after the Hopkins fight had fallen through. Joe didn't possess psychic powers to my knowledge. He couldn't have known he was going to fight Kessler in a big unification in 2007.

Look at who he fought from 2001-2003.

Then look at who he fought even when he knew he couldn't unify with Ottke.

Go and have a look.

Those were not the actions of a man who wanted the biggest fights out there.

The whole boxing world ranked Toney as one of the best in the world back in 94. Were you not watching back then? Yes, he had his off nights. But he'd recently beaten McCallum, Johnson, Nunn, Sosa, Barkley, and Littles etc.

No, Hopkins doesn't get a pass. But you're kidding yourself if you think he was average. What do you class as average?

Collins breaking Eubank psychologically was very impressive. That was a great feat. And I wouldn't have though it'd have been possible to be honest. So I have to give Collins a huge amount of credit for that, and for his warrior mentality, as well as chasing down Roy for a fight. He deserves an awful lot of respect. But none of the above means anything with regards to an actual fight with Roy. Apart from Collins's chin and his toughness, Roy would have held every other conceivable advantage over him. They were on completely different levels.

Yes, Roy did avoid him in 1999 when Collins got into the ring after Roy's fight with Ricky Frazier. But nobody really wanted to see that. HBO wanted Collins to fight Joe, with the winner potentially fighting Roy. At the time, HBO wanted Roy to unify the LHW division against Reggie Johnson. And Roy went on to do that in his very next fight.

Don King wasn't Roy's manager. Roy only fought for Don on a handful of occasions.

Roy won those belts legitimately in title fights.

Who else was there? Exactly. Ottke was Joe's biggest rival at the weight, and I agree with you, in that Ottke was overated and he would never have fought Joe. In my opinion, Joe would have beaten him easy. But it soon became evident that they were never going to fight, which is when Joe should have moved up.

Yes, Joe was happy to stay where he was to face all comers. But again, look who was in the division before Lacy and Kessler came along. There was no one of note.

You say the patience finally paid off. But again, in 2003/2004, Kessler had done nothing.

So was it patience, or was it a lack of ambition to try and move up for potentially bigger fights?

I think it was the latter.

There you go. Again, everyone has different circumstances surrounding them.

But Joe supposedly wanted big money PPV fights. And those potential fights weren't available either in Britain or in the SMW division back in the early 90's/early 00's. They were in the U.S. up at LHW.

If Wlad hadn't have gone over to the U.S. in his early career, he would never have gotten the title shots that he got. Boxing is a business, and if you're non American and you want the big money and the big fights, then more often than not you have to travel. America is the home of boxing. They have the biggest promoters, the biggest TV networks, and the majority of the world's best fighters and trainers are based there. Joe needed to crack America to try and get himself the biggest possible fights available. But he wasn't interested until his final year in 2008.

How so?

Quality over quantity.

What were Dariusz's best wins at the weight?

Look at who Roy fought, the manner of the victories, and the circumstances etc.


He knocked out Montell Griffin in under three mins with a lead uppercut.

He was the only fighter to ever knock out Virgil Hill, and he did it in just four rounds with an incredible body shot.

He easily beat Reggie Johnson.

He easily beat Julio Gonzalez, who went on to beat a faded Dariusz at the end of his career.

He easily beat Clinton Woods, toying with him like he was an amateur.

He gave Richard Hall an absolute hiding, who gave Dariusz problems.

He beat a big southpaw in Eric Harding, who'd beaten Tarver.

He beat Tarver after burning muscle after dropping back from HW. He was absolutely exhausted, and was he running on fumes for the last few rounds. Yet he pulled out the win against an extremely hungry and motivated fighter, who presented a stylistic problem, due to being a tall and rangy southpaw that had power.


So how exactly has Dariusz got a better LHW resume?

IMHO, Roy's win over Tarver is better than any of Dariusz's wins at the weight.

 

if you're debating about joe cal, you're having a mass debate for sure.

 

I was referring to his diehard fans, and you haven't disappointed.

 

What are you talking about?

I'm not bothered about his height. Your photos are irrelevant. Since when does Carl naturally walk around at 196 pounds??

Joe is naturally a bigger guy than Carl.

We're not simply talking about height, we're talking about their frames and their natural weight.

Even if Carl was three inches taller than Joe, Joe would still be a naturally bigger guy. Carl would have to bulk up to fight at LHW. Whereas Joe didn't need too. The last few SMW fights for Joe were really difficult and he was starving himself to make weight. It would have been much easier for him to fight regularly at LHW.

Joe himself said that he walked around at 192-196 pounds. He said than while he was still active in the 00's.

He struggled against Hopkins because he was a great fighter. But he didn't struggle against Roy.

 

It's quite incredible people still claim Joe was after Roy. If Joes own assurance that he wasn't interested won't do, what would?

The only thing that would work was if Joe sought certain posters out and chased them with a bat screaming that he never had any intention of what so ever to fight Roy at his best, and that he personally will murder anyone who says otherwise in discussion threads on the Internet.

Only then would people on ESB stop saying Joe was after Roy.

Joe was appearantly interested in fighting Hopkins. He wasn't against taking on world level opponents when he felt the relation between opportunity and profit were appealing. He just wasn't interested in Roy.

Not sure how common it is that fighters duck because they don't fancy the idea of getting hurt and lose. But I recall Eubank saying he didn't want Roy, and Cotto ruled out another fight with Pac due to not wanting to sacrifice his body. So it seems it happends every now and then. Perhaps only top dogs can afford to reason like that. KO machines like Wlad or GGG never seems to have trouble finding suitable sacrifices.

 

Lol. You are right. Haven't waded into this thread, but some guys are like the Manson family with Calzaghe. They have bought into the whole woe-is-joe idea that they don't even believe HIM when he says things that are counter to their implanted narrative.
The writing is pretty clear to me. Joe was a terrific fighter but he and his people seemed to lack the confidence to take the big step onto the world stage until much later in his career. (I think it no coincidence that when he finally did step up, he was able to land those fights with the big name guys that they merely said they wanted, but did not do enough to actually land.) The turning point was Lacy, and what a turning point it was.
My issue isn't with the idea that he didn't fight a prime Jones or Hopkins, it is that he didn't and somehow it is everyone else's doing. Lots of people didn't fight those guys. We just don't hear the tales of woe. Joe was comfy fighting the low hanging wbo fruit for a long time, made a great living and forged a great legacy for himself. But the trade off to that is these persistent questions regarding how good he really was as he was never able to measure himself against the biggest and best while it really mattered.