Who do you rate more highly: Joe Calzaghe or Bernard Hopkins?

Calzaghe beat him but at the time Hopkins was a 42 year old past prime (but still great) fighter. You can argue that at the time Calzaghe was still in his prime. If you would have put a 36-37 year old Hopkins in with Calzaghe (or however old Calzaghe was at the time of that fight) I believe Hopkins would have beat him. Heck i believe Hopkins beat him when they did fight.

 

eubank wasnt unprepared as he was trainng for a LH bout before hand

b hop entered the ring as the BIGGER man against calzaghe

again kessler has an as large if not larger frame than JC:tong

 

JC was about three or four years out of his prime when he faced b hop, prime JC would UD prime hopkins

 

Bernard Hopkins has the better resume, that is clear as day. He would be a good 40 places over Calzaghe in my list. Therefore that is the answer to the thread.

H2H this still remains a mystery. Who knows what happens prime for prime at 168. The outcome of their fight is far from conclusive either way as to who would win.

 

Four years then. Makes little difference. It's a long time never to lift a finger to even try.

This is a rather interesting new twist on the usual exhausted excuses. Why would Calzaghe have had to maneouvre himself past Michalczewski when Michalczewski was never in the way? In four years Jones fought many opponents, including the less celebrated Brit Clinton Woods. There was ample opportunity for Joe to try and make it happen, just like Hatton did.

Either Calzaghe was a minnow who wasn't on Jones's radar, or he was a shark who was too dangerous to touch lol, it can't be both. Which one are we opting for today then?

Why didn't Joe go to the USA, win a couple of fights, call him out? Hatton did. Why didn't Joe ever make any effort?

I think we are approaching one of our favourite junctures here, where BadJuju knows he is wrong and has nowhere to go, but will argue till the sun comes up anyway. Yawn.

Are you seriously so infatuated with Joe that you actually believe that Roy Jones was watching Joe go life and death with Robin Reid and labour to wins over unheard of journeymen, and viewed him as too much of a risk for the cash?!??!?

You are on another ****ing planet, seriously.

Think about it: no-one viewed Calzaghe as on the level of a Michalczewski, Eubank, Collins or Benn then. He hadn't beaten Lacy or Kessler by then, he was just a decent WBO champion. Had he went to the USA and won some fights at lhw and called Jones out, Jones would have got the dollar signs in his eyes from UK fans going Stateside and Sky TV, and snapped it up. Just like Mayweather did.

But Joe never made it viable. Are you honestly going to continue with this excruciating nonsense?

He could easily have got a fight with Jones, had he ever lifted a finger.

Did he lift a finger?

 

You missed the point entirely. If you call the guys Hopkins fought smaller it's the same kind of thing.

 

I disagree. Joe has some of the greatest powers of recovery ever seen in a boxing ring - an example being the Kabary Salem fight, or when Hopkins and Jones rushed in to finish him off. He would get up off the floor mad as an ant to UD a peak Roy 'Superman' Jones.

If Hopkins had the stamina and workrate he had in '01, he would surely have been able to maintain his pace, sustain his effective work, and win handsomely.

:good

 

how the hell do you get a fight with jones, JC was pushed back and avoided, deal with it

 

Hopkins had the same work-rate he always did. He's proven that before and after the fight with Calzaghe, so I find that logic bogus and it does not alter my thinking that the fight was inconclusive prime for prime. Fighting Calzaghe tends to have an effect on ones output.

I certainly couldn't look at that fight from how I scored it, which was Calzaghe by a good 4 rounds and say I'd be certain Hopkins could claw back that difference. Maybe, maybe not.

 

yes they were naturally smaller, im just getting sick of people bigging up one resume and crapping on the other, its close but jc beat the bigger challengers

 

And Hopkins beat the better challengers. For me -- beating better fighters at higher than natural weight > beating bigger but inferior fighters -- all day long.

 

I have Hopkins's career set. It is very clear from watching it that Hop beat Tarver, Winky and Pavlik because they were not fighters who forced him to fight at a high pace. Hopkins was active and busy throughout those fights because they were fought at a slower pace.

Taylor and Calzaghe did force a fast pace, and because of that Hopkins did not have the energy to sustain his work throughout, and the fights were closer.

Watch these fights again. They are fought at a noticeably different tempo.

Compare these fights to Hopkins's tempo, energy and workrate from 97 to around 03 (I noticed his slowing down even in the Oscar fight in 04).

A clear difference. The guy reached 40. It's human biology!

 

I agree and thats part of my point. Hopkins never fought anybody like Calzaghe with that type of tempo and intensity through the years 97-03. And therefore its pretty difficult, damn near impossible for me to be sure he does not react the exact same way. It's not as if his work-rate fluctuated hugely between 97 and against Winky, Tarver or Pavlik, some of the best opponents and performances in his entire career.

It is also human biology that most guys facing a guy that throws 1000 punches (slaps?) is going to tire, it is not the norm to face somebody like this. And you can't throw 1000 counterpunches, either. His whole gameplan was to wait for opportunities, no matter which year we're in that is a consideration.

Ultimately this comes down to how you scored it too. If you scored it by a round here or there for Hopkins you've got a completely different perspective to me that saw it to Calzaghe by 4 points. That is a difference to make up for.

 

I genuinely do think there is a clear difference in the pace he fought at and his output between the Hopkins of Glen Johnson (97) to around 2003, and the Hopkins of 06 onwards. A clear difference. Hopkins was famed for his conditioning and stamina back then. I just cannot see any way that he would not have been easily able to match or even exceed Calzaghe's fitness and stamina levels, had Hopkins been prime when they fought. Joe's threshing machine style and sloppy wide-open defence would have been absolutely made for 2001ish Bernard, Joe wouldn't be able to throw 1000 punches because while he'd be coming forward he'd be getting caught repeatedly with hard shots to the head all round every round.

As I'm sure you have, I've watched all of both men's world title fights. I am utterly convinced that a peak Hopkins would win very convincingly.

 

I think Glen Johnson needs to be put into perspective because to me its not relevant. Glen Johnson had done nothing. He had literally fought nobody, and even after so many fights was green to the game. I don't believe he was even the fighter he is today.

Hopkins style changed drastically over the years, against better quality opposition. We can only assume the version that beat the best opponents impressively was the best version of Hopkins. That is quite logical, and to me that isn't the earlier aggressive Hopkins. That's not to say a 40 yr old Hopkins was best, but I certainly don't think the version I've watched early in his career was Hopkins at his best, and furthermore I can not envisage him ever fighting like that against Calzaghe at 168lbs.

I don't see enough difference between Hopkins in his best wins in terms of work-rate to justify me saying for certain he could overturn the margin. You scored the fight entirely differently so I can see how it might be easy for you to shave a few years off and easily see Hopkins beating him, but I certainly think you should evaluate quite which version of Hopkins and exactly HOW he is going to fight against Calzaghe. There are some subtleties here that need consideration, its never as simple as saying "Yes, Hopkins can do what he did against Glen Johnson if he's much younger".

To quote Joe, "At the end of the day" everybody has an opinion and I respect it.