Does destiny of British Boxing rest with Calzaghe?

[hardmanbrit]

Hatton was one of if not the best credentialed fighter to face Mayweather! Hatton was 43-0 and destroyed Castillo and Tszyu before facing Mayweather. A lot of Boxing fans gave Hatton every chance of beating Mayweather.

Ricky Hatton is a terrific fighter.

There can be no doubt about that.

However, he is not in Joe's class.

[sparked_85]

Quite simply yes, it does.

Obviously we have a lot of good fighters.

But Joe is our 'great' fighter.

[CardioMonster]

british boxing runs a lot deeper than top level guys like calzaghe and haye

the grass roots gyms are british boxing, the tradition of men fighting with or without gloves in gyms, in car parks

british boxing doesnt rest on those guys!

[britboxer1994]

no he is a great boxer but destiny of british boxing is huge at the moment they have lots of great upcoming talents and i expect britain will become the most dominant boxing country.
think bout it they have hatton who will fight mayweather in england again soon most probably and will beat him david haye will dominant any heavyweight carl froch will take over as undiputed super middleweight champion when calzahe retires amir khan will dominate light weltweight when hatton retires and kevin mitchell will dominate super featherweight britain has greater prospects than i have ever seen in boxing i am a huge fan of british boxing style also clinton woods is class alex arthur roman greenberg the list goes on

[kayjay]

It would be a slight kick in the face to British boxing, but I wouldn't take it that seriously. Joe is old and you have younger fighters who are at or near the top of their divisions:

Witter, Haye, Hatton, and to a lesser extent Lockett, Macca, Rees, etc. Their performances will speak for themselves.


At the same time, if Joe looks terrific against Hopkins, as I expect, it does nothing for any of those other guys. They still need to make their own names.


So don't look at this as a national issue. It's two men in the ring. You're not there with them

[Clegg]

I know what you mean kayjay, but in terms of having a UK fighter who has gone over and beaten the best Americans...that hasn't been one since Hamed had his brief period of dominance. Fair enough, Hatton lost to the best, but two high profile defeats by Brits in the US would be pretty damaging.

If he wins then people will say that he has been underrated for all these years. If he loses then it looks like he was ducking big fights and wasn't ever that good.

Not many people make generalizations about Mexican boxing because of one of their fighters losing. Ditto for Puerto Rico. But they might do about the UK if Calzaghe isn't successful.

[CardioMonster]

If Hopkins wins it will be more damaging to US boxing. Because to win he will have fixed the judges, butted and fouled the entire fight.

[Danster0507]

In the short term yes because he's our best fighter atm. BUT Haye is going to HW and will make plenty of noise there, Hatton will carry on as the best LWW in the world, there is also the likes of Khan and not forgetting the team of amateurs going to Beijing.

[msagrain]

Within the next 6 years there are going to be some really good fighters coming throught, so no it does not rest on joe and anyway joe has only got 2 more fights left after the b-jop fight.

[hardmanbrit]

I know what you mean kayjay, but in terms of having a UK fighter who has gone over and beaten the best Americans...that hasn't been one since Hamed had his brief period of dominance. Fair enough, Hatton lost to the best, but two high profile defeats by Brits in the US would be pretty damaging.

If he wins then people will say that he has been underrated for all these years. If he loses then it looks like he was ducking big fights and wasn't ever that good.

Not many people make generalizations about Mexican boxing because of one of their fighters losing. Ditto for Puerto Rico. But they might do about the UK if Calzaghe isn't successful.

Good post.