Hopkins-Calzaghe.... how I see it going...

[mECHsLAVE]

Come On!! This fight is so easy to figure the outcome. Hopkins will lose a decision by a wide margin. Those picking Hopkins, take off your rose colored glasses your embarrassing yourselves. Hopkins WAS a great fighter but is past his prime and please don't bring up the Tarver win. He showed in his two straight losses to Taylor that if you make him fight and keep him from holding he can't go 12 full rounds anymore. Fighting Tarver he was fighting a shot fighter anyway whose only claim to fame was beating another shot fighter named Jones. Fighters like Hopkins and Dela Hoya are making a new carreer out of almost winning fights well after they should be retired. Hopkins will be out pointed and in the later rounds will get dirty in desperation. While anything can happen in a boxing match this one on paper is an easy fight to pick. Quite frankly if it costs to watch it I wouldn't pay a dime!!! Calzaghe while no spring chicken himself has shown he can still go 12 full rounds and against harder punchers than Hopkins and out box them easilly and thats what your gonna see here, 12 round wide unamious decision for Calzaghe with Hopkins claiming he was robbed in the end. Fans picking Hopkins are the same fans who continue to pick Dela Hoya, they simply can't disconnect there heart from ther brain

Heart has nothing to do with it, for me. I picked Hopkins, and think he's a total douche. But it comes down to a few basic points...

1) The US has not been kind to foreign fighters, lately. Calzaghe is going to be out of his country, his comfort zone, and fighting the biggest name of his career.

2) Hopkins is going to be naturally stronger than Joe at 175. Kessler was bigger and stronger, too, but he's a stand-up, very orthodox fighter. Hopkins is dirty, wily and will be happy to make it ugly and rough.

3) Hopkins right hand. Joe has always been open to counter-right. He's been clocked with it many times, in almost every major fight of his. Mitchell, Sheika, Lacy, Kessler, etc etc. Hopkins doesn't have as pretty a right as Kessler, but it's more effective, and I think he will look to land it more. Hopkins won't just step back and continue to get pushed back like Kessler. Hopkins will stand and scrap and grab and hold and maul and counter before he's on his heels all night. I predict a fight-changing right hand from Hopkins in the mid-late rounds.

4) As we saw with the Hatton-Mayweather scoring, Joe will not get the benefit of the doubt in any round. If the fight goes the distance, and I think it probably will, then look for Hopkins to get the close rounds. Hopkins isn't loved by boxing world, but the US judges/refs/promoters have really seemed to pull together when a foreign fighter comes here to fight a US champ.

As I said in my first post, Joe can win this fight, but he's going to have to turn the clock back and punch his ass off in the first couple rounds. Hopkins will absolutely go defensive if that happens, and you'll see Calzaghe win the way Taylor did against him. But I don't think that's part of Joe's plan. I think he just thinks he's too active for Hopkins and fighting his normal fight will do it. Hopkins is as smart as a fence-post outside of the ring, but he knows the game in the ring and he knows who he's up against and he's just not going to want to go out with a loss to Calzaghe (a "white boy") in his last fight. You'll see determination and desperation like you never saw against Taylor or Wright.

It's a tough pick, and more than anything else, I'm going with my gut. My gut tells me Hopkins pulls this off.