who is greater, Bernard Hopkins or Joe Calzaghe?

Leonard offered Pryor a fight. Pryor wasn't happy with the money, he talked about it during the post-fight interview after beating Lennox Blackmoore.

Hopkins-Calzaghe in 2002/03 basically fell apart over money. Hopkins wanted more money, he was probably unhappy with the amount of money that Don King was going to take out of the purse. I don't find it a coincidence that under Don King (following the Tito fight), Hopkins had small-ish fights. Then afterwards he suddenly headlines HBO PPV fights with DLH, Taylor, and Tarver and makes millions in these bouts.

I chose Hopkins as I feel he was the better fighter who beat better opposition although I don't feel it's quite as big a gap as many others do.

 

Ali has some underwear with a better hall of fame resume than slappy joe. I love watching the Slappy Joe nut massagers mention Jeff Lacy as a high point in his career. It's the equivalent of Cotto fans mentioning Cotto's win over Gomez. Cotto is a hall of fame candidate after beating Alfonso Gomez.

 

You're a ******.

Calzaghe fought Lacy to unify the belts. And Lacy was supposed to win. And then Calzaghe proceeded to utterly dominate him. Lacy never even had a moment in that fight. Not once. Alfonso Gomez was never even given a chance against Cotto.

 

Hopkins is greater. Has fought better competition and beaten better fighters. The problem with Calzaghe is he started fighting the top fighters too late. When he fought Hopkins, Hopkins was already 43, and when he fought Jones his age was 39. His best win was against Kessler then Lacy. Thats the best of his resume. Not much is it?. He had potential for greatness but he just started too late in challenging top fighters. He could of called out Jones, Hopkins years ago. He never called out Tarver, Dawson, Glen Johnson. Not even B fighters like Montel Griffin. He could of called out Pavlik (before Hopkins) and he would of got the credit that Hopkins got for beating Pavlik. He could of called out Abraham but why did'nt he? Felix Sturm? Taylor, and Bute. A fight between him and Bute would of been great. Why did he not challenge any of the above fighters I have mentioned. Instead he fights an old Hopkins and Jones and then based on those wins he thinks he deserves to be called an all time great. The Abraham and Sturm fights could of easily been made and I think he would of probably beat both of them.

Don't get me wrong he is a very good fighter and he could of been great, but he has the attitude that alot of fighters don't belong in the ring with the "Great Calzaghe" thats why he refused to fight the above list. This is the wrong approach if you want everyone to believe you are an all time great. It gives the impression you are ducking all these fighters and in some cases it may be true.

 

It is simple really h2h calzaghe would beat most fighters based on his workrate.

what beats workrate? timing.

b-hop was the master of timing.

h2h it is a toss up. resume wise, hopkins takes it hands down. he fought better people.

 

lets not forget that he also lost the only 4 times he fought elite fighters at their own natural weight - jones, taylor twice, calzaghe.

 

1.Jones would have beaten more or less EVERY single middleweight who has ever boxed, excluding perhaps only THE top guys of all-time like Robinson, Monzon and Hagler. Is Hopkins to be lowballed because he fought one of the greatest h2h fighters in history while he himself was pre-prime?

2.Jermain Taylor is an elite fighter but Antonio Tarver isn't?

3.Many, many knowledgable boxing fans believe Hopkins won the fight with Calzaghe.


Your bias is laughable.

 

1 hopkins performance against jones was disgracefull.

2 your right, taylor and tarver are both **** poor. fancy the 'great' borenard hopkins losing to a **** poor fighter twice.

3 a past it calzaghe fought in hopkins back yard with a corrupt referee and beat him. it was also calzaghes 1st fight at light heavyweight :deal

 

You very obviously haven't seen the fight. atsch

Neither Taylor nor Tarver were ****-poor. Taylor at the time was the best middleweight contender in the world. Tarver at the time was one of the best, if not the best, light-heavyweight in the world. Neither of them were ever (as you wrongly called Taylor) "elite", but both were very good fighters of this era.

When Hopkins fought Taylor, he was 40 years old, and already his stamina was noticeably beginning to wilt. He "lost" to an inferior fighter because he couldn't match his workrate round by round - but certainly showed that he was superior in terms of technique and effectiveness. Antonio Tarver, being bigger, older and slower than Taylor, allowed Hopkins to fight at his own pace, and Hopkins was dominant.

Calzaghe was not "past-it" when he fought Hopkins, that is an absurd comment. It was the next year following his greatest win, over Kessler. A corrupt referee? Calm down, drama queen. It was indeed career supermiddleweight Joe Calzaghe's 1st fight at lhw. Career middleweight Bernard Hopkins had fought there before. Was weight a factor? Was it ****. You're reaching. And failing.

 

Hopkins by far, Joe C resume is not impressive at all.

 

Hopkins will go down as the greater of the two because his resume is perceived to be better due to the 'names' he beat.

As a head to head fighter, I'll take Calzaghe any day of the week over Hopkins.

Calzaghe's style would be a nightmare for any fighter. Only time he struggled was in the Hopkins match at Light Heavy were BHop was allowed to get away with murder by a corrupt Cortez, but still was unable to beat Joe. It showed the best chance you have at beating Joe is to not fight him, but hug, hold, headbutt and spoil for 12 rounds with the help of a crooked ref.

Hopkins lost 4 times to the fastest guys his own size that he faced (Jones, Taylor x2, Calzaghe). He also seemed to struggle with an overmatched DLH's speed early in their fight. This indicates a style weakness and should hurt him in ATG head to head matchups.