Why wasn't Calzaghe given more credit for his wins against RJJ and Hopkins?

Well, maybe if Reid got himself the WBO Mandatory spot like Veit did he could have forced Calzaghe to rematch him, maybe even call in the Mandatory the day before Calzaghe was set to fight someone else and force him to choose between a rematch or losing title like Veit did.

Far as I know, Reid never tried to become WBO mandatory and failed in his attempt to win a world title after losing his WBC belt to Malinga - admittedly, because he was robbed against Ottke - so he wasn't in a position to force a rematch on his terms, and he wasn't willing to accept the terms offered to him by Calzaghe's camp - as @Loudon said above, he felt those terms were insulting to him.

I dont think Veit and Reid's situations are comparable.

 

The only guy that supposedly rated those wins was Joe.

I'm sure that you've seen the excerpt that I posted from Joe's autobiography as well as the Setanta Sports interview that I uploaded.

Joe repeatedly dismissed Roy as being finished, and said that he wanted to face the winner of Pavlik and Taylor.

Pavlik then called for a fight shortly afterwards, only for Joe to say that he didn't rate Pavlik, as he didn't excite him and he'd done nothing to warrant a fight. He then signed to fight Roy and told the public that Roy was still dangerous and that he was coming off of 3 great wins. All of which culminated in him showboating against a guy who he'd never have dared to have fought whilst he was anywhere near his best. And the icing on the cake was when he told the media that he knew he wouldn't get the credit that he deserved for beating Roy when he got back home.

The whole saga was just an absolute joke.

For me, Joe's cringeworthy contradictions were worse than seeing Roy lose to Tarver and Johnson.

 

If Joe had had the belief and he'd have fought to his full capabilities, then I think he could have beaten Sergey.

I'm also sure that Sergey could have gotten rid of Bernard had he have really wanted to. Go and watch the fight.

 

What are you talking about?

If you watched the fight, then other than the very last round, Sergey obviously never tried to take Bernard out.

That's very clear.

In the build up to the fight, Sergey was constantly spoke of as a huge puncher. And in my honest opinion, he purposely went out that night to show another side of his game. He wanted to show people that he could box and he did have skills.

 

To be fair, he was in a no-win situation.

Joe should get credit for beating Bernard. Although like I said earlier, at the time, I had it as a draw. And that's because I saw it as: Bernard's quality vs Joe's quantity.

 

This I would concede, except I would say that its scope went beyond racial griping and amounted to a beef with the world. And he needed that, it was his motivational dynamic. The Calzaghe incident was just another transmutation of that perpetual need to stoke indignation within himself, in my opinion, and not a manifestation of any real malice or bigotry toward white folk.

That the outcome of the Smith fight would have stung goes without saying. That was supposed to be a winning farewell bash — Smith was picked as a hard-punching, sellable opponent of the like that Hopkins would typically defuse — but ended with him being served his retirement papers in the most unceremonious and forceful fashion. Gotta hurt.

He seemed very much at peace with the Kovalev defeat, though, and seemed to take a certain pride in having passed the torch (was highly complimentary of the Krusher). He should have hung his gloves up on the feat of being the first guy to push Kovalev the championship distance, or at least had his swansong bout soon after instead of waiting a couple years.

I would strongly doubt that, considering how conscious he is of history. His glory past 40 is a sizeable part of his legacy, arguably the greater part.

 

Yes he does. That's his second best win, and mine is the minority opinion (rating the Kessler win ahead of B-Hop).

 

Well fraud was calling out AJ so lets have it.

 

I'm not arguing in favor of the win personally. Rank and file with Lewis/Tyson - it was a money/novelty/legacy fight and nothing more.

 

Of the smattering of folks picking Roy in online boxing circles, most all of them were picking out of sentiment/nostalgia or the vain hope that Roy could somehow reverse the hands of time and bring back (yawn) 'Superman'. Roy's believers were like those dudes who still thought Tyson could unify the heavyweight division in early 2004.