Cutting the opponent is not part of the gameplan, fighters have no control over whether or not a certain punch is gonna cause a cut.
It's very rare that a fighter will sustain a cut worthy of a stoppage from a single punch, cuts have so be worked to make them worthy of a stoppage. If a fighter is stopped on a cut it demonstrates they were defensively incapable of protecting a certain area of their face and risked permanent damage to their health due to their defensive failure, therefore cuts are a legitimate stoppage.
As an example, here's commentary from the Calzaghe/Jones fight at the conclusion of round 7:
"That is some cut above the left eye, Calzaghe worked it and worked it and finally got it to open up."
This is followed by a replay of Calzaghe deliberately landing a punch across Roy's eye.
At the conclusion of Round 8 there's a replay of Calzaghe landing a similar punch:
"Even though Calzaghe didn't throw a lot of punches this round he was placing his punches and showboating, you look at that and he was targeting the left eye and placing his punches very selectively."
Bowe had poor defense and was about as hard to hit as the broad side of a barn. He could get away with that against most fighters, absorbing their shots and beating them on attrition but against monster punchers like, Lewis, Tyson and a prime Wlad he would have been knocked out before the fifth round.
People remember the positives from his three Holyfield fights and extrapolate an all time great career without also thinking about the negatives:
Bowe sustained an incredible amount of punishment every time he faced Holyfield, he displayed incredible offense on the inside but a fighter of that size had no reason to be fighting Holyfield at that distance, so either his outside fighting or his footwork were failing him.
Bowe had flaws in his technique when fighting at a distance, his jab was good but his right hand was wide, this meant he could be beaten to the punch and couldn't do optimum damage without moving forward after the jab, exposing himself to counters. His footwork was also geared towards offense, good at cutting off the ring but poor at backpedaling, which meant he was poor at defusing pressure. He had a great chin in terms of taking sustained punishment but was susceptible to one punch power shots. Similarly his punch power was good but not of the one punch variety.
With some fighters what they do will work, more or less, against everyone. Bowe wasn't one of these fighters. With Bowe, it came down to how well he matched up against his opponent.
For anyone smaller than him, without great power, Bowe would be a nightmare, as even if they exposed his technical flaws they wouldn't be able to knock him out and would be drawn into a war where Bowe's greater size would probably be the difference maker.
If a fighter was the same size or had one punch knockout power, Bowe was very beatable, it would take talent, either good outside fighting or the ability to slip inside but it was possible.
If a fighter was of similar size and had one punch knockout power, Bowe was a sitting duck.
To quote Pulp Fiction:
'Just because you are a a character doesn't mean you have character.'
If a fighter stops applying pressure when they are consistently countered then they are not a pressure fighter.
If a fighter is 'in and out' when they are 'out' they are by defintion not applying pressure.
If a fighter can not cut off the ring then they are not a pressure fighter.
Manny Pacquiao is not a pressure fighter.
Opponents feel under pressure against Pacquiao because he's good and can knock them out at any given moment, opponents feel the same way when fighting Wladimir Klitschko, it doesn't make either of them a pressure fighter.
1) Calzaghe
2) Hatton
3) Hamed
4) Froch
Carl could surpass Prince but I don't think he'll have the time or opportunity to surpass Ricky and Joe.
Froch is above both Ottke and Calzaghe cause he fought every single top guy in the world...
Carl lost to the two best fighters he fought, (one of whom Calzaghe beat convincingly when over the hill) and needed a gift against the third.
Calzaghe has more titles, more title defenses, better wins, more wins, unified a division, was lineal at two different weights, ect.
You're repeating soundbites that haven't been relevant since 2006 and were silly even then.
Bowe was wise to duck Lewis.
Lewis was too big, too strong, too fast, too precise and had too much reach. On top of that, Bowe had no defense and couldn't throw a straight right.
It would have been target practise for Lewis.
Dawson barely got past a 39 year old Johnson, fought two unimpressive fights against a shot Tarver, rematched Johnson, then lost to a fighter who isn't even top five at Super-Mid.
I understand that people can be a fan of a fighter and like his style but they need to open their eyes, Dawson was never elite and putting him top five P4P was ridiculous.
Right now there are a large number of fighters - Cloud, Pascal, Kessler, Ward, Froch, Dirrel, Abraham ect. fighting at relative parity.
Dawson fans need to realise Dawson is a part of this group, that he isn't and wasn't above it and that if his skills are to be acknowledged as elite he's first going to have to prove it.
Calzaghe retired at 37 as undisputed Super-Middleweight champion and Light-Heavyweight champion with a pro career record of 46-0, half of them title fights and with a K.O. percentage of 70%. As an amateur his record was 110-10.
I like Ward, he's a good fighter but what Calzaghe did over his career was exceptional, as Chad Dawson recently demonstrated. I'll favour Calzaghe to win this fight until Ward posts superior career numbers.
Those siding against Calzaghe should also remember that the fight he always lost was the next one.
"I want you to know something about me; I'm not afraid of you, Lennox..."
Bowe had just won a world title and the first thing he did was walk up to the man who had earned a fight with him (Lewis/Ruddock: Fight for the Right) and explain he wasn't scared.
Bowe should have covered himself in feathers and walked around clucking - it would have been more subtle.
Roy couldn't deal with Tarver's southpaw jab, he could get in but couldn't do so safely. Tarver also had his head well defended which reduced Roy to single body shots.
It was a good gameplan, Tarver made Roy look pedestrian and waited for his ego to put him in a dangerous position where he could land a big shot.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Calzaghe and Hopkins are exceptionally intelligent boxers who make everyone look bad, even each other.
What's really sad is that Hopkins felt he had to cheat against Calzaghe and Jones Jr. but handed far worse beatings to Pavlik and Pascal while fighting clean.
Chad Dawson must be crying into his coffee this morning.
Roy is going to be able to choose which round he knocks Silva out. There is enormous difference between being able to throw punches and being able to box and Silva has virtually no boxing skill. It's going to be an exhibition of classic Roy Jones clowning.
Hopkins would get killed. He'd use his great countering ability to slip most of Valuev's shots but he'd not be able to do anything with the opportunities, he's not fleet-footed enough to get in, land his own shots and get out without eating a Valuev bodyshot. He'd also be unable to stop Valuev clinching; he'd be a natural lightweight with a massive heavyweight leaning on him.
Hopkins is awesome, but his style has limitations and facing a long-armed, hard-hitting heavyweight, is one of them.
Johnson would have been massacred. His pressure fighting would have him walking on to everything Calzaghe threw, negating Joe's biggest weakness - his power. Johnson would have been faced with a faster, more skilful, southpaw, Johnson.
And anyone bringing up the Roy Jones fight as an example of how difficult it is to keep Johnson off you needs to remember that Jones was the most gun-shy he had ever been in his career. There was one nine minute stretch during the fight where Jones landed seven punches. That's less than one punch a minute for three whole rounds.
If by some miracle Roy were to beat Dawson you may as well retire the 160-175 weight range for the foreseeable future, the old guard would have taken out everyone.
I appreciate fighters who are entertaining in and out of the ring and I've never understood the hate for Mayweather, you would think boxing fans would be used to brash characters by now.
I'll be rooting for Floyd, he's of a similar mould as my favourite fighter: Eubank.
When people bring up Floyds' defence they don't just mean the upper body stuff like shoulder rolls, they're including his footwork and ability to judge distance.
Floyd has greater reach and a better jab, Manny can throw combinations but Floyd will ensure the distance is sufficient for him to be out of range of all but the first shot. Pac will either have to follow Floyd while punching, not planting his feet, eliminating his own power, or he'll have to lunge and risk being countered by a straight right.
Imagine the Uri Foreman fight from the undercard but at a much higher level, Floyd will aim to make it look something like that in the early rounds.
The best thing about Calzaghe/Hopkins was the two fools sitting at home thinking "That guy looks awful, I'm sure I can beat him."
Poor Kelly and Roy should have realised Joe and Bernard always make opponents look bad, even when fighting each other.
Tennis authorities developed a new test for Nandrolone about ten years ago and it immediatly caught 40 of the top 100 players.
They then had to cover up the positive tests with a story about doctors handing out contaminated supplements at tournaments.
That was one test, for a specific PED, in tennis.
Now imagine what VADA could eventually find testing in a life-threatening sport like boxing.
There may not be many left standing.
Ordinarily, when two big punchers with high work-rates and poor defences collide, I would favour the naturally bigger man to win a blowout but there's a big question mark hanging over Pavlik's frame of mind, which makes this match-up interesting.
Dawson can't slip punches well enough to counter and hasn't got the foot work to chase opponents down.
If a fighter is quick enough to close distance, land a combination and get out again, there isn't anything in Chad's repertoire that can stop them.
It wasn't a lack of heart on his part either. Chad had to wait until Pascal tired before he could finally catch up to him and the few times he tried to exchange in the early rounds, he came off worse.
On top of that, Pascal isn't even that fast, he didn't have the handspeed to intimidate Carl Froch like Taylor and Dirrel did.
Bernard has a style suited to taking out tall, stiff fighters who rely on their power more than their skill, when he fights skilled fighters who he can't time so easily he fights as dirty as possible to muddy the water, preventing a clean fight so that no one can see him being out-boxed. Then between fights he signals he's going to fight top young fighters his own size or step up in weight before picking a catch-weight fight with someone from a lower weight division.
I can't help but admire Hopkins for managing to trick so many boxing fans into thinking he is better than he really is. Bernard is a great fighter but his ability as a self-promoter easily dwarfs his boxing ability.
What's Joe's motivation? 'Hey come out of retirement Joe, fight the guy you already beat in another bore-fest so that idiots can continue making jokes about you only fighting old people and dismiss the fight because Bernard was past-it'
Calzaghe fought Hopkins in America and despite a flash knockdown and a ref allowing Hopkins to get away with crap that would have made Ricky Hatton blush, he still came out the winner.
Bernard had twelve rounds in his own country, with a sympathetic ref and he failed to get job done. Case closed.
I don't think it's a coincidence that the two most hated fighters on this site are Calzaghe and Mayweather. People seem to watch the the careers of these arrogant fighters hoping to see the smirks wiped off their faces and when it doesn't happen they console themselves with making lame jokes and and discussing what could have been. Thus in their minds Calzaghe is always running from Hopkins and Dawson (before being exposed it was Pavlik) and Floyd is always running from Cotto and Paq. Despite being in thirty and forty plus fights each, it was always going to be that mythical next bout, that next fighter, that's when it would happen. People often say that guys like Roy and Holyfield should hang it up, stop living in the past and realise it just isn't going to happen, it's about time Calzaghe and Mayweather haters did the same thing.