Its time for me to back up what i've being saying since day one ... that Calzaghe will lose to Bernard Hopkins. This is the fight- more than any other that convinces me Hopkins will be a little too refined and rough for Calzaghe. Bika as crude as he is when he throws actually boxes in the same kind of style as Hopkins. He uses small short steps in and out of distance and holds his hands almost identically. Calzaghe was troubled by this good judgement of distance and also Bikas hand positioning. He could only effectively land when he drew Bika into an exchange where Bikas wide punches meant Zaggy was able to land first. They would exchange punches and then they would find themselves in an untidy clinch. Zaggy did enough but was exhausted at the conclusion. He didn't enjoy the roughness of the bout and in the interview he was very dissapointed. Hopkins has all the strengths of Bika but he is a much classier puncher and we will see Calzaghe nailed time and again as he tries to make plays against the fantastic Hopkins defence. Zagster will be disheartened and I feel well beaten at conclusion. Think i'm speaking shite. Watch Hopkins-Tarver.... Then Watch Calzaghe- Bika.... Tell me that a) Hopkins and Bikas style are disimilar. b) Calzaghe loves a tear up. c) Calzaghe was not put off by Bikas poise. d) Calzaghe carries on regardless of the roughness of a bout. You can't. I'll be willing Calzaghe to win but Hopkins will take this by a good margin. 117-111 maybe slightly closer. Hopkins to counter him every time he makes a mistake.
The better the opponent the better Joe prepares and performs. I think u are dismissing the fact Calzaghe had little motivation and struggled to get up for the Bika fight.
Calzaghe loves a tear up, always has. I wouldn't look at the Bika fight to judge Joe. An unmotivated Joe in yet another nothing defense is one thing, motivated Joe in an important fight is quite another.
It says something that people constantly use Bika as a point of reference to justify a Hopkins win. A fight which Joe won by a comfortable margin, lets not forget. Joe will fight on a much higher level, and is unlikely to make the same mistakes again.
The other really dirty fighter Calzaghe fought was Salem, and Calzaghe was down and generally **** in that one too. This Hopkins guy is even better than Salem, mark my words. He will knock Calzaghe out inside 12.
Jeff that is why I think it will be an even fight going into the last 4 or 5 Rounds, but then Calzaghe will pull away. Hopkins will not be able to keep up. Its a 50 - 50 fight. You can't take anything Betty says about thsi fight seriously, and you have to remember Calzaghe won almost every round agaisnt Bika. Calzaghe is a lot better than Taylor. Taylor beat Hopkins by He attacking with his jab and continually kept Hopkins on the defensive. Hopkins only started winning rounds when Taylor slowed down. Calzaghe is the best in in the worlse at keeping his opponent of the back foot, and he will not slow down like Taylor did.
I can see your points guys.... I like Calzaghe he's a good fighter but many of the Bika rounds could of gone either way. This unmotivated drivel is nonsense It was Calzaghes first fight as a real 'star' attraction and it was also on HBO. Bika used his ring generalship and canny defence to negate Calzaghes mid distance work. Calzaghe's sucess only came with his flurries of little shots which will not cut it against Hopkins..... Hopkins is smart enough to step back and counter Calzaghe with hard shots form mid distance and avoid these type of exchanges. At long range Hopkins bosses this fight. Calzaghes long distance work is questionable at the best of times Hopkins is faster to the draw and smart enough to pick the right shots to land before falling into a clinch. The reason Joe looked super human against Lacy was because Lacy was made for him he ran out of ideas after 2 minutes and had little to play with when he couldn't match Calzaghes speed. But comparing Lacy and Hopkins is like comparing Man Utd and Sunderland. Hopkins will dominate this fight at every distance. Calzaghe WILL have the odd success but I can see no way he will beat Hopkins. He would have to give the performance of his career and show me something he's never done before. And Liam Calzaghe loved the Byron Mitchell tear up because he was fighting someone with very limited skills who was there to be hit. Calzaghe is a good on top fighter but I have serious doubts about whether he will be able to not become disheartened when Hopkins starts tagging him. He's not fighting an overrated dane this time he's fighting someone who can match every part of his game with sheer class. The only advantage Calzaghe has is his handspeed but I think Hopkins will negate that with good movement and clever punch selection. I'm not a betting man but I'm putting my full Boxpicks Financial Winnings on a Hopkins victory. I'll be a happy man if i'm proved wrong but you guys are over-rating Calzaghe based on the Kessler and Lacy victories. Kessler would have been brutalised by Nigel Benn, Steve Collins and Eubank. Lacy would have been a tough fight for them but Zag was his ultimate bogey man. Hopkins is a class act and he will take a clear UD. Mark my words.
Calzaghe's never been close to being stopped. Hopkins failed to stop Tarver, Winky or Taylor and took 9 rounds to get former lightweight De La Hoya out of there. Calzaghe has faced bigger punchers with a higher workrate e.g. Kessler AND Bika. Hopkins will never stop Calzaghe on anything other than a cut or injury.
We Calzaghe chose not to showboat he won every second of every round against Bika. Have you absolutely lost you mind picking Hopkins? You been in the ring, you should know a 43 year old cannot successfully counter someone with Calzaghe's speed with the kind of frequency that will win a fight. Hopkins won't even be the fighter he was in the Wright fight. He is absolutely buggered. He was an equal match for Jermain Taylor, just think about it. Taylor has basically nothing over Calzaghe and is a hell of a lot less skilled, apparent against Pavlik, Spinks, Ouma...and so on.
This is a really good post Jeff. Lots of interesting theories but I think you're seriously over rating this version of Hopkins. You're analysis of Calzaghe has a lot of credibility but the one thing I question is the mindset of Joe going into that Bika fight. Nobody knew who Bika was and what he was ultimately about - his fight with Beyer got stopped early and he had fought zero world class opposition before that. Bernard Hopkins, on the other hand, has been around for a number of years now at world level. He's respected, wily and needs to be treated accordingly. If you think he won't be ready for everything Hopkins is about based on the Bika performance then that is laughable. Sorry to say it, but to call this "drivel" is to not completely understand the situation Calzaghe was in then and the one he's in now. As for Hopkins, you could say that he was given all he could handle by a fairly limited Jermain Taylor. Joe's footwork, stamina, fitness, movement, chin, speed is undeniably better than a man who gave Hopkins hell for 24 rounds. Whether or not Hopkins won these fights or not is up for dispute. Whether Calzaghe, clearly unmotivated, beat Bika clearly on points isn't. I think that Calzaghe can only lose this fight, Hopkins can't win it. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that Joe tries to get in a tear up too many times and gets countered. But first, Hopkins has to break Joe down. If he couldn't do that against the Taylor's of this world and the questionable work ethic against an overweight Winky Wright, I just don't see how he can sustain the pace Calzaghe fights at.
It was a horrible post mate. He fell into the trap of using psuedo logic. Just like the posters in the classic forum do. His post is somewhere between claiming "Joe Calzaghe could beat up a bear, as he always fights to the level of his competition" and Ricky Hatton could beat Floyd Mayweather, as Mayweather struggled with Castillo." The human mind is a joke.
It's no secret that I'm rooting for Hopkins but I couldn't see him winning - not at 43. You've made me more hopeful, maybe the old man can pull it off.
