Why did Calzagahe try so hard to get Hopkins?

[Fox McCloud]

In reality... what does he have to gain from this fight?

I understand getting The Ring title at 175, but seriously, if he beats Hopkins, we all know the excuses.

He's too old.
He just lost to Taylor twice, the Tarver win was a fluke, and Winky was too small.

I can already see it coming.

[Ironside]

There's no one ranked higher than B-Hop P4P right now at both SMW and LHW. He's the best fighter Calzaghe could fight right now, but you're right, they will make excuses, and then say he was scared to fight Dawson or something. If he fought Dawson instead of B-Hop, everyone would say he's scared of B-Hop.

[Fox McCloud]

There's no one ranked higher than B-Hop P4P right now at both SMW and LHW. He's the best fighter Calzaghe could fight right now, but you're right, they will make excuses, and then say he was scared to fight Dawson or something. If he fought Dawson instead of B-Hop, everyone would say he's scared of B-Hop.

Yeah...

Dawson is green/inexperienced, blah blah blah.

Sucks for Joey Cal I guess.

[Randall_Hopkirk]

There's no fighter out there that he can beat and not receive recriminations afterwards. Some belittle his wins over Lacy and Kessler as they weren't "names" but they were young, at their peak, world champions. Hopkins may no longer be at his best but he is a legend, a legend which Calz will stick on his record, along with a 'W' in the adjacent column.

[WESS]

I dont understand why Calzaghe wont fight Jones. yes he's is OLD and not in his prime. But it wouldn't even be a fare fight if calzaghe fought him in his prime. It would be an easy KO for Jones (early rounds). NOW with jones having a GLASS jaw and Calzaghe punching like a 6 year old girl. Will jones get KO'ed NO. Calzaghe is fast but jones right now is STILL faster, calzaghe KNOWS that. SO he goes for Hopkins the slow fighter. But its all good Hopkins will still win. But calzaghe doesn't want anything to do with someone of SPEED like JONES. and Jones still has about 50% of the power he used to have and for his age STILL is in excellent shape. I bet you will see Jones at the fight and calling ***** boy cal-z after the fight, just as tarver did to him. Should be interesting. Jones already said Hopkins will loose. He has a good point but i still believe hopkins will win.

[TopDawg]

He wants to face the best, and right now B-Hops is #1 at LHW.

[Allucard]

In reality... what does he have to gain from this fight?

I understand getting The Ring title at 175, but seriously, if he beats Hopkins, we all know the excuses.

He's too old.
He just lost to Taylor twice, the Tarver win was a fluke, and Winky was too small.

I can already see it coming.

You do realize "The ring" is a magazine dont you? As respected as it.
Hopkins isn't the best fighter Joe could face, not by a close deal. Claiming a 43 year old is not too old to fight makes you look ******. Joe will win easly and these excuses are not like many others you see when fighter A is the greatest and will shut up fighter B and AFTER the fight he becomes a bum. The majority of people are saying BEFORE the fight Hopkins has no chance in hell. Why? At 43 he will be just too slow for Calzaghe and.

Back to topic the reason the fight was made was to get a real star on Joe's "record". You can go around it many ways but in the end thats whats going on. He could have faced many more fit opponents but a 43 year old Hopkins is perfect. While not really dangerous he will be nice in Joe's record. The problem is, Hopkins won't retire afterwords and will prolly have some more losses which will ultimately look bad on Joe Calzaghe.

[Sin City]

There's no one ranked higher than B-Hop P4P right now at both SMW and LHW. He's the best fighter Calzaghe could fight right now, but you're right, they will make excuses, and then say he was scared to fight Dawson or something. If he fought Dawson instead of B-Hop, everyone would say he's scared of B-Hop.

the thing is.. the excuses are valid! hopkins is old.
he is in a lose lose situation, hopkins is way past his best but prob the best fight he could get right now.. still if he really wanted this fight he should have got it a long time ago instead of fighting dudes like Bika and Manfredo.

[Jim Jeffries]

Well he completely unified the division at 168 (though I guess the IBF stripped him prior to the Manfredo bout.) He's the Ring Champ at 168 and has already beat the current #1 (Kessler (who's beat #2 Mundine and #5 Andrade)), #4 (Lacy) and #8 (Bika.) Plus 21 defences over a 10 year 3 mo period. It's safe to say he's accomplished everything at 168 and he's having trouble making that weight any more, so obviously 160 is out of the question. Hopkins is the Ring Champ at 175 and the #1 rated LHW, plus a #4 ranked p4p and a guaranteed HOFer. From what I heard he's guar 12 million dollars, even though it's not PPV and if he wins it will set up a possible PPV against either Jones Jr, Dawson, Taylor, Pavlik, etc. He's giving up all his belts at SMW (except for the Ring), so if he loses it will suck. Plus Hopkins doesn't have a world title belt so even if he wins he'll just have another Ring belt, but his name and status will be boosted enough to set up whatever fight he wants from there.

[Dynamite Kid]

I dont understand why Calzaghe wont fight Jones. yes he's is OLD and not in his prime. But it wouldn't even be a fare fight if calzaghe fought him in his prime. It would be an easy KO for Jones (early rounds). NOW with jones having a GLASS jaw and Calzaghe punching like a 6 year old girl. Will jones get KO'ed NO. Calzaghe is fast but jones right now is STILL faster, calzaghe KNOWS that. SO he goes for Hopkins the slow fighter. But its all good Hopkins will still win. But calzaghe doesn't want anything to do with someone of SPEED like JONES. and Jones still has about 50% of the power he used to have and for his age STILL is in excellent shape. I bet you will see Jones at the fight and calling ***** boy cal-z after the fight, just as tarver did to him. Should be interesting. Jones already said Hopkins will loose. He has a good point but i still believe hopkins will win.

Zag aint no faded ring rusty ntaurally 147 fighter like Felix Trinidad ,Calzaghe has the power to Ko Roy easily IMO ,Calzaghe can couter punch aswell he unlike Tito

u are talking Roy up to much mate the Trinidad win flattered him