Whats your opinion on Joe Calzaghe?

Calzaghe had brittle hands and was reaching 40 himself.

 

Don't know about that. Pick em fight IMO with a slight lean to Calzaghe.

 

One of the worst resumes ever for a guy considered an ATG.

Maybe he has an ATG worst resume?

 

I guess if there was one of his fights anyone would go and rewatch it would be the vs Lacy fight and there's not much motivation for you to do that considering the result and who you idolised. Joe vs Kessler is a great fight to watch again, because up until round 4 he was losing and made adjustments which turned the fight on its head. And Kessler was in his prime then.

The 'slapping' I think was a result of his fragile hands - in his early fights he hit hard. Putting teak-tough Eubank on his ass is testament to that. In his latter fights I think he traded power for volume and I suspect the atypical way he punched was either a conscious or subconscious attempt to avoid breaking his hands.

I agree those punches didn't look good but the boy could fight....

 

Joe's volume of punches and work rate would have troubled Ward. Nearly 100 punches a round for 12 rounds is a problem for anyone. Would have been a fascinating fight to see. Fascinating but not exciting, I suspect.


EDIT: I originally typed 'nearly a 1,000 punches a round for 12 rounds is a problem for anyone' lol. Well it would be. And physics would have an issue with this too....

 

He certainly could fight, and you're probably right that his brittle hands are tge reason he tended to slap. He supposedly stopped Chris Byrd in the amateurs.

 

Special talent. HOF fighter. Fast, high volume, high work rate southpaw..

He's a bit like another natural Brit talent BJS.. in a sense that his mid career (peak years) plateaued somewhat for various reasons.. he was too good to sit on the shelf like that, but it came good in the end. Let's hope Billy can get it together too..

 

One of Britain's best fighters.

It's a shame that his career fell in the middle of the end of the Eubank era and the beginning of the Froch era.

A great fighter, but like many, with positives and negatives.

Positives:

Extremely fast
Great chin
Great stamina
High workrate

Negatives:

Didn't believe in himself as much as he should have done
Wasn't as ambitious as he should have been
Portrayed himself to the media as an avoided fighter
Suffered lots of injuries

 

Joe was alright I guess but if you want my opinion Dillian Whyte is far superior boxer and moreover Calzaghe never once came close to knocking out a boxer of Chisora's calibre, so there, suck it!

 

On the Negatives as you said Joe was a avoided fighter,the top boys wanted no part of a prime Calzaghe.
Roy & Bhop stayed well away from Joe till near there end days in boxing.

 

I guess I should pay homage to him but I was never that impressed with him. He was quick, elusive and could score but he lacked power. I was just never a fan though I respect what he was able to accomplish.

 

Stylistically Ward has fought no one like Calzaghe & i saw a Ward interview a while back in which he even said it would be a close SD type fight.. I'll ave a look see if I can find it..

 

Until he beat Lacy in 2006, Joe was relatively unknown outside of Europe.

He wasn't avoided.

He was the one who chose to stay in Europe to defend a lightly regarded WBO belt for 10 years.

He had the opportunity to raise his profile by moving up to LHW and fighting in the U.S. much earlier than he did, but he wasn't interested. And that was fine. But it's the reason why he didn't fight bigger fights earlier.

For a fighter as talented as Joe, his resume from Eubank to Lacy is very poor.

You can't defend a WBO belt for 10 years, where you fight guys like Mario Veit twice whilst claiming that you've been avoided. It's absurd.

 

Well it depends on what you think you're worth. Whilst I think it would of been better for him to make concessions and head stateside it must rankle some to be a titlist and still get treated like some non-entity in America because you weren't born there. Dariuz had similar reservations about chasing the dollar and if you look at a lot of guys who have done that a fair few of them got majorly screwed/ignored anyway.

 

I watched his career from start to finish throughout , he started off with devastating power but gradually it became apparent his hands kept breaking with numerous trips to Harley street post fight the norm , at one point it was feared he'd be lucky to reach past 25 years old in the sport and become yet another washed up ex fighter without a pot to p iss in so imo he took the correct course in his style of fighting which to be honest at times looked w ank but boy what a fantastic boxing brain he possessed and used it to stunning effect when you think about it , how many can claim to hold the undisputed championship ? How many can claim to have retired undefeated ? How many can leave the sport on their own terms a multi millionaire who's now mid to late 40's and enjoying his life with his sons? ....not too many in this sport I would guess ...the kid done well with what he had .