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Immediately after the Hopkins fight I felt sure that Joe looked like he was losing handspeed, footspeed and reflexes, and he threw more genuine slaps than I've ever seen from him. I put it down to age, the extra weight or a combination of both.
After rewatching though, I'm pretty sure that Calzaghe's decline has been overestimated. In terms of what he did, he didn't look that much different than he did against Kessler, in the later rounds, when he was throwing and moving, he looked fine. Hopkin's timing of counterpunches and the fact that Bernard threw so little for Joe to avoid made his reflexes look bad, the genuine slapping issue and handspeed issues was caused by Bernard just jumping into clinches head first and head down. Joe's punches looked ineffectual because he was forced to cut his punches short and bring them in from the side, and the handspeed looked missing because there was no distance for Joe to punch across to demonstrate it. He doesn't have the power he used to, but it's been like that for a long time.
No doubt, Joe is not immune to aging, and if he wants to make his mark at LHW he needs to get busy. Against Tarver and Dawson in particular I think we'd see a much better Joe Calzaghe, the boxer/ volume puncher we saw against Lacy and Kessler. I don't believe either of these guys are as good as Joe or Kessler, and I think that Joe would really show America what he is all about if he fought them.
The RJJ fight I am nowhere near as certain about. Roy is a match for Joe in the athleticism department even now, and his big losses have all been KOs. If Calzaghe were not on top of his game, and the fight turned into a boxing match, it is possible that Joe could be outpointed. The way for Joe to win that fight is to return to the aggressive Joe of old and pressure Jones to the point of swarming. If he did that I think he'd beat Jones all day long, but the question is whether Calzaghe can still throw with the power required to make such an approach effective.
So basically I'd say Calzaghe can rule LHW if he wants too, he'll just have to be quick about it and not become complacent. It'll be good seeing what happens.
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Lexus Lf HistoryLast edited by abadger; 03-20-2011, 11:55 PM.Comment
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Hard to say because nobody looks good against Hopkins but if he wants to stay at 175, I think he should put on some muscle on the upper part of his body.
I think Calzaghe's chin is OK at 175, hard to say about his power, his speed is still very good IMO.Last edited by Silencers; 04-23-2008, 08:36 AM.Comment
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Calzaghe looked a bit thick upper body wise, it made his prizefighter character look more realistic. It wasn't much muscle definition though.Comment
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Calz defiantely looked slower at 175, just the other day I was watching the Calzaghe-Kessler fight and watching him warm up on the pads, he looked MUCH faster.Comment
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calzaghe may need a bit more time tor really grow into a LHW, after years of boling himslef down to 168 its possible that he has taken some muscle off as well.
he keeps his speed and workrate though which is by far the two most important assests that joe has. in fact with them alone he is a real contender to the LHW belts.
throw into the mix his ring generalship, adaptability and chin you end up with someone who should in the next few fights be the undisputed LHW champ.
as for his chin i still have no doubts about it - joes been knocked down twice once vs mitchelll and once vs old hopkins.
the mitchell knockdown was a really good punch but it was more a case of it being right on the tmple and he caught calzaghe off balance - joe was coming into the punch. besides joe ame back to KO mitchell in the same round!!!! so it couldn't have affected him too much.
as for the hopkins KD i agree with one of the posters above - im not going to read into it too much. hopkins caught him with a good punch as joe was coming in but joe didn't go down straight away, his legs were still strong and his eyes didn't seems fazed - in fact you coul argue that hopkins pactually pushed him down.
both KD's were in my opinion a case of joe being caught off balance.
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Volcano Vaporizer ReviewLast edited by hookoutofhell; 03-14-2011, 01:05 PM.Comment
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fighting Hopkins didn't show us much other than Joe's world class adaptability, workrate and stamina they were not affected.
Punching power is hard to decipher he didn't land much clean on a guy who exists soley to make you look foolish.Comment
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