Why I Belive Calzaghe will beat Hopkins

Correct, Bernard showed high efficiency counter-shooting when Eastman threw his long armed punches at will. He particularly landed flashy leading left hooks a la RJJ and his usual sneaky right hands but he didn't step up the pace, he limited the pace in the Staples ( first time under GBP)... And those were signs that even if he had 60 % connect rates, he could never have won a fight with Taylor landing in single digits. At worst, Taylor would miss many and look bad but he didn't for the first half of the fight - at that point on, it was too little too late for Nard.

 

Also landed 4 jabs out of 12 against Taylor thru 6 rounds and in the second fight. Best round and in which he first outlanded Taylor was the seventh - Hopkins 15 of 24 (63%) and taylor 7 of 17 (41%) but Hopkins has a case in the second fight because he won down the stretch - 130 landed out of 371 thrown (35%), Taylor landing 6 punches less 124 and throwing 20 more 291 (32%), and huge advantage in powerpunches 101 out of 240 Hopkins ( 42%), Taylor 60 out of 182 (33%)... I would have a draw in the second fight but 115-113 scores ( three scorecards) are not bad... I still say that the levels of competition in Hopkins-Taylor I & II, and Pavlik-Taylor I & II were a little bit above Calzaghe and Kessler... And that's where they are making the wrong analogies - Calzaghe faced Kessler in Wales, not Pavlik, Taylor or Hopkins in Vegas.

 

not read the whole thread back, but take away the unexpected first round knoockdown and your are 100% right in your prediction of the fight panning out.

 

im a joe calzaghe fan but i think you underestimated hopkins a bit.