Hopkins: "You Want Me Calzaghe, Come to America"

[CottoOverrated1]

Dat WOP from England is a bum. He cant handle a legend like Hopkins. Hopkins is a whole different story than Jeff Lacy.

[hugh grant]

Dat WOP from England is a bum. He cant handle a legend like Hopkins. Hopkins is a whole different story than Jeff Lacy.

Gotta agree that Hopkins is on another level to Lacy. Hopkins would have handled Lacy the way Joe did, but maybe not as emphatically
But Joe will soon be arriving in American and hopefully Hopkins will be available to talk business. He done well to shoot up to lightheavy to avoid Joe. If he is as elusive in the ring against Joe he may do quite well.

[adietheforestfa]

The big fight Calzaghe claims he wants.
Has he packed his bags for the States yet??

[squealpiggy]

Calzone thinks he is in the league of an all time great like Hopkins? He thinks his 20 defenses is on the same level? Not when he stacks his record with nobodies like Manfredo and Bika. Hopkins has a sterling record fighting great fighters. Somebody remind me of a GREAT FIGHTER that Calzone ever fought?

This is on the same level of ridicule as that 7 ft freak who is chasing Marciano's undefeated record in heavyweight. What is with Europe stacking their fighters with tomato cans before releasing them against true threats? Jermain Taylor took on the best after a record of 20+. Apparently Euro fighters need to build confidence of 40 tomatos first.

Oh come on, aside from a couple of big-name former welterweights, Hopkins' list of title defenses doesn't exactly read like a who's who of boxing greats. And Hopkins himself has sustained criticism because of his willingness to take on mandatories and not search out the best. Anything Calzaghe is accused of, Hopkins can be accused of too.

[Famoso Matador]

Hopkins has big names on his resume though, bigger names than Calzague. Tito Trinidad might have started as a welterweight but he was still crushing people at middleweight when he fought hopkins.

[squealpiggy]

Hopkins was only Tito's second opponent at Middleweight. But that doesn't really matter, Hopkins built a career in fighting mediocre fighters and ex-welters, and you'd be hard pressed finding an elite fighter that Bernard beat that didn't have a massive physical disadvantage to begin with.

[Famoso Matador]

Woops, for whatever reason i thought Trinidad fought Holmes, my mistake.
Before Hopkins fought trinidad i think your right, he was in a similar position as calzaghes. He had alot of weak defenses and a terrible trilogy with Robert Allan. I think Before Trinidad his best wins were prabobly over Echols and Holmes. I liked the first Mercado fight, but that was a draw. But thanks to the middleweight tourny he did unify the division. After the tourny there was no question who the man was in the division.
With Calzaghe there are still questions. He thinks he can beat Kessler, so why not fight him? He could be recognized as the one and only champion in the division, something his WBO title cant give him credit for. Calzaghe just does not want to go out of his way for big fights in his division. I give Calzaghe alot of credit for destroying Lacy, but Lacy made that fight happen, not Calzaghe.

[squealpiggy]

Well browsing Hopkins' record it looks on paper that he fought mediocre fighters apart from Trinidad who debuted at 140 lbs and De La Hoya who debuted at 135 lbs and held a title at Super Feather. To be honest I don't personally hold with these criticisms, there have been some tough challenges along the way, and these "easy" defenses often aren't. But there are a lot of criticisms levelled at Calzaghe by people who rate Bernard Hopkins very highly, when aside from the fact that Hopkins has obviously had far greater exposure in the United States there really isn't a massive gulf in quality in their respective careers.

[TheEvilSaint]

i think joe should just come to the states and get it over with. for god's sake, hes fought enough in the UK.

[The Final Word]

Cmon man, Hopkins has only fought great people in his last 5 fights. DLH was a welterweight as was tito. Hopkins record against middleweights is not strong as well, because there werent any great middleweights to box. And the same is for Joe.

Let's see, Calzone waits until champs are old and near retirement to challenge them, meanwhile fighting tv show personalities. Hopkins fights his greatest fights at 40 years old and beats the light heavyweight champ.

Calzone is 34 years old and already talking about retirement. Hm, sounds like he doesn't have the right stuff to be an all time great. I wonder if he really has brittle hands or he just keeps breaking his well-manicured nails.