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5Burowz,
As I pointed out in your previous thread, your entire contention that Joe Calzaghe is based on one idea alone, that Joe Calzaghe has never fought any quality opposition. You, and all Calzaghe haters cling to this erroneous notion so firmly that you blindly ignore the very real achievements that Calzaghe has made in his career, and make yourselves look ****** by claiming that the world's longest reigning champion, longest active undefeated fighter and current Ring 2 weight champ is not a great of boxing. It is absurd, of course he is.
When discussing greatness we are referring to the achievements of a fighter relative to his peers as well as historically, so to see if Calzaghe is great lets take each of your sole contention, that to be great a fighter has to beat great prime opponents and compare Calzaghe to his immediate competitors for greatness, who I believe are Bernard Hopkins, Roy Jones and James Toney.
Bernard Hopkins:
Bernard Hopkins has LOST every time he has ever faced an elite level primeish opponent. These Roy Jones, Jermain Taylor and Joe Calzaghe, with Jermain not even being a true elite. The wins he gets most credit for are Winky, Tarver and Trinidad, but in reality both Winky and Tarver were way over the hill and Trinidad was not a middleweight. In reality, Hopkins best genuine wins are over the likes of Glen Johnson, William Joppy and Howard Eastman, none of whom are exactly elite guys. These kind of names hardly blow names like Reid, Veit, Brewer and Mitchell out of the water, they are at a similar level.
Roy Jones:
Roy Jones record is so inflated it is crazy. He has two wins over genuine prime elites, in Hopkins and Toney. He is the best of the trio I am discussing, but his major achievement is his multi weight wins, he has rarely taken on and fought the best at a weight, let alone cleared out a division. After Hopkins and Toney his best wins are Mike McCallum, Montel Griffin, Tarver, Clinton Woods and Johhn Ruiz. None of these are worldbeating names and range from talented almost elites to journeymen. I must add, and we must not forget, that Jones the great has losses to Griffin, Tarver and Johnson, all of whom a prime Calzaghe would have beaten, so how is it that he retains so much credit? His resume may be a bit better based on wins, but is much worse on losses, so I so no reason why Jones should be great but not Calzaghe.
James Toney
I have a lot of time for James Toney, his extraordinary activity and longevity win him a lot of respect in my eyes, but the truth is that his standard of opposition is not outstandingly amazing. His best wins are against Nunn and Barkley, later Jirov with lots of medium level contenders like Littles and old heavyweights like Holyfield. He lost to Jones as well as Griffin and Thadzi. Nunn was a good but not great champ, and Barkley was shot as ****. Jirov was hardly a true great either! Like Jones, Toney has a good resume, but again it is not brimming with amazing fighters, just plenty of good ones exactly like Calzaghe's and Hopkins.
The point of this post is to show that even the best modern era boxers do not have these amazing histories where they beat champ after champ, we just come to think they do as we accept their 'great' status. Mostly they just beat the better fighters in their respective divisions as well as lots of lower class ones too. Calzaghe, Hopkins, Jones and Toney all did this and each have their own standout wins, but each record has much to recommend it in different ways, easily enough for all of them to be considered greats.
I would also like to point out that Calzaghe has now reached the point in his career when each of the other three started losing. Each of them began going up in weight once they lost, and then won some lost some above their original weight. Calzaghe by contrast has moved up having exhausted the SMW division specifically to pursue fights with the 'greats' who are supposed to beat him, Hopkins and Jones. You can claim that they are old, but for me facing those two is better than taking on Tarver and old Winky, let alone John Ruiz.
Denying Calzaghe his great status means we actually have to ignore the fact that he has done what his peers could not at their original weights and is now doing what earned each of them so much credit, namely moving up to a new weight and winning.
For me all these fighters are great, calzaghe included.
As I pointed out in your previous thread, your entire contention that Joe Calzaghe is based on one idea alone, that Joe Calzaghe has never fought any quality opposition. You, and all Calzaghe haters cling to this erroneous notion so firmly that you blindly ignore the very real achievements that Calzaghe has made in his career, and make yourselves look ****** by claiming that the world's longest reigning champion, longest active undefeated fighter and current Ring 2 weight champ is not a great of boxing. It is absurd, of course he is.
When discussing greatness we are referring to the achievements of a fighter relative to his peers as well as historically, so to see if Calzaghe is great lets take each of your sole contention, that to be great a fighter has to beat great prime opponents and compare Calzaghe to his immediate competitors for greatness, who I believe are Bernard Hopkins, Roy Jones and James Toney.
Bernard Hopkins:
Bernard Hopkins has LOST every time he has ever faced an elite level primeish opponent. These Roy Jones, Jermain Taylor and Joe Calzaghe, with Jermain not even being a true elite. The wins he gets most credit for are Winky, Tarver and Trinidad, but in reality both Winky and Tarver were way over the hill and Trinidad was not a middleweight. In reality, Hopkins best genuine wins are over the likes of Glen Johnson, William Joppy and Howard Eastman, none of whom are exactly elite guys. These kind of names hardly blow names like Reid, Veit, Brewer and Mitchell out of the water, they are at a similar level.
Roy Jones:
Roy Jones record is so inflated it is crazy. He has two wins over genuine prime elites, in Hopkins and Toney. He is the best of the trio I am discussing, but his major achievement is his multi weight wins, he has rarely taken on and fought the best at a weight, let alone cleared out a division. After Hopkins and Toney his best wins are Mike McCallum, Montel Griffin, Tarver, Clinton Woods and Johhn Ruiz. None of these are worldbeating names and range from talented almost elites to journeymen. I must add, and we must not forget, that Jones the great has losses to Griffin, Tarver and Johnson, all of whom a prime Calzaghe would have beaten, so how is it that he retains so much credit? His resume may be a bit better based on wins, but is much worse on losses, so I so no reason why Jones should be great but not Calzaghe.
James Toney
I have a lot of time for James Toney, his extraordinary activity and longevity win him a lot of respect in my eyes, but the truth is that his standard of opposition is not outstandingly amazing. His best wins are against Nunn and Barkley, later Jirov with lots of medium level contenders like Littles and old heavyweights like Holyfield. He lost to Jones as well as Griffin and Thadzi. Nunn was a good but not great champ, and Barkley was shot as ****. Jirov was hardly a true great either! Like Jones, Toney has a good resume, but again it is not brimming with amazing fighters, just plenty of good ones exactly like Calzaghe's and Hopkins.
The point of this post is to show that even the best modern era boxers do not have these amazing histories where they beat champ after champ, we just come to think they do as we accept their 'great' status. Mostly they just beat the better fighters in their respective divisions as well as lots of lower class ones too. Calzaghe, Hopkins, Jones and Toney all did this and each have their own standout wins, but each record has much to recommend it in different ways, easily enough for all of them to be considered greats.
I would also like to point out that Calzaghe has now reached the point in his career when each of the other three started losing. Each of them began going up in weight once they lost, and then won some lost some above their original weight. Calzaghe by contrast has moved up having exhausted the SMW division specifically to pursue fights with the 'greats' who are supposed to beat him, Hopkins and Jones. You can claim that they are old, but for me facing those two is better than taking on Tarver and old Winky, let alone John Ruiz.
Denying Calzaghe his great status means we actually have to ignore the fact that he has done what his peers could not at their original weights and is now doing what earned each of them so much credit, namely moving up to a new weight and winning.
For me all these fighters are great, calzaghe included.
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