Prime Joe Calzaghe vs Prime Bernard Hopkins

[Pugilistic™]

i dontthink i made my point well enoguh look at taylor and the fight he fought vs hopkins, taylor kept up a good pae and didn't let hopkins think about his pucnhes and where the openings were going to come from. he ws successful at this because of that, not taylor is a good fighter in fact hes a very good fighter but JC is a modern great!! if taylor could get 2 SD's against a Hopkins who was very close to his prime then imagine how JC would have done, especially as he followed a very simalr fight plan as taylor did.

yeah i kow he was dancing around vs Pavik but thats because pavlik is a one dimensional slugger with not much after his jab and right cross. you can afford to throw 3/4/5 punch combos vs Pavlik because he doesn't have the abilty to counter you back, you try doing that aginst JC, toney or RJJ and then see hat happens.

anyway, loking at hopkins fights vs his opponets heres how i would rank his victories over tarver, DLH, tito, wright and Pavlik. Tarver>tito>wright>DLH>Pavlik, its hard to really rank his victories here because you look at three of those wins and they were fighters fighting 2 categories above their best weights. personally thats why i rank Tarver victory alot highre than any other, Hopkins took on someone his own size, a champion and beat them.

like i sid before iv never really ranked the names on someone's resume and you make a fair point that alot of JC fans do the same thing but i will tell you now that i also give bernards his credit when it is due. he unified his division, and was the dominant champion for 10 years!! i rank that as just coming a close second to the tarver victory, when listing his achievements.

iv never really rated the names on somones resume because im from europe, yeah thats probably true but i know how boxing works, great fighters like JC ae often avoided - just look at froch. im not saying hes on par with JC but he was ducked by taylor and lacy!! american fighters do duck europeans because they often fall into the hgh risk and low reward category.

parts of Hopkins gamehave declined parts of his game have improved, i mentioned in another post that one factor alot of people are forgetting is that prime Hopkins doesn't have the same slickness, ring smarts or even the counterpunching ability (which is now james toney-esque) that todays Hopkins does. Now those are the tool that you would arguably need against a fighter like JC whe he was youngerhe had them but these skills were good now they ae great which stylistically make him even more dangerous for JC.

Hopkins was 40 years old when Taylor fought him, How the hell could he of been in his prime or near it??, His prime ended around 2003 and he became more defensive and threw less. Hopkins would of beat Taylor had he just simply threw more punches. Hopkins in his prime was still slick, very good defensively, good workrate and was effective coming forward and on the backfoot.

Calzaghe's lack of defense would be perfect for Hopkins crisp accurate combinations and counters. Calzaghe likes to impose his will on his opponent but against a prime b-hop his aggression would be ineffective as Hopkins would follow up with accurate counters and kept Calzaghe at bay.

You need to watch Hopkins performances against Echols and Johnson to see what a prime Hopkins actually is.

[CounterPuncher]

Hopkins was younger when he fought Calzaghe than he was when he fought Pavlik last week.

Hopkins has in no way got any better since the Calzaghe fight.

You can only deal with who is in front of you on the night and it's not possible for Hopkins to box against Joe as he did against Pavlik. Joe has an awkward style and a much better boxer in all aspects than Pavlik.

Hopkins is a greater boxer than Calzaghe in terms of overall career and for the sake of history but in terms of an actual match-up in the ring I think Joe has the slight edge.

[boxasmash]

exactly.

achievement wise it's close but b-hop

1 on 1 on primes calzaghe takes it.

[Stickman]

I disagre with that. The B-Hop that faught Antwun, Glenn, Mercado, Joppy, would have defeated Calzaghe. You can say that prime B-Hop didn't alwayz rely on being slick, preservative on his punches and more defensive but that doesn't mean B-Hop is a better fighter then he was back then. B-Hop had MUCH faster hand speed, more power and his accuracy was amazin. By the way, if Calzaghe would have EVER tried to K.O a prime B-Hop...best believe B-Hop would be on his azz

I think you're a little overawed by HOpkins. A great fighter in his prime, to be sure, but not invincible. I think he's a much better fighter now, and would give him a better chance against a prime Jones than he had when he actually fought him. His first outing was at LH, which he lost by decision, got discouraged and went back to his day-job. When he came back, he went to supermiddle to win a decision, then middleweight, though he did have a LH fight I think somewhere in there again, early on, against a bum. Calzaghe, on the other hand, fought at SM and LH his entire career. Has he ever even had a fight at middleweight? Not that I recall, and I'm not going to bother checking right now. If he has, it was probably very early in his career, when he'd have less trouble making weight.

I think Calzaghe would've been tough for a younger Hopkins to handle. Not saying he'd win (or that he wouldn't), just that he'd have been tough. I respect Hopkins' accomplishments, and after the Pavlik fight I'm more a Hopkins fan than ever before, but I'm enough of a realist to know that he wasn't as extraordinary in his "prime" as many (if not most) seem to think. A single superb performance at the end of an otherwise "Good" career does not a #1 ATG make. If he'd beaten Jones back then, or Toney, yeah, he'd be more highly regarded now, but he didn't, that opportunity is passed, and he is what he is...a middleweight that fought "decent" opponents in his prime, beat them all, and has put on a few great performances late in his career. Good stuff, but not a shoe-in for top 10 ATG status, for sure. He is a great fighter, but that's a very exclusive club, and I just don't believe he qualifies for memebership, based on his career.

Also, he's never been a big power puncher. He's accurate, quick (even now, at his age, he's as quick as he ever was), and technically very sound, and far smarter than most fighters, but he is not now, nor has he ever been, what you could call a devastating puncher. I can't believe you actually think he is.

[DiegoFuego]

this shouldn't even be close. a 43 year old Hopkins almost beat a prime Calzaghe.

[Genski]

yeh but if you ask hopkins he would say that he is prime so....

[Dan...]

said it before i'll say it again - hopkins was losing the fight long before he was getting tired.

calzaghe took away the counter right after round 4 and hopkins imo really began to tire around about round 9.

look at the pavlik fight - hopkins can fight for 12 rounds but just not at the pace the Jc set - still lets not give joe credit for that lets just say that hokins ran out of stamina(!)

It is not just BHop's stamina that has diminished over time. He doesn't have the power or the speed of hand or foot that he had at his best.

In relation to your second point, I am of the opinion that Hopkins was in far better shape for the fight against Pavlik than he was with Joe.

[Kris Silver]

It is not just BHop's stamina that has diminished over time. He doesn't have the power or the speed of hand or foot that he had at his best.

In relation to your second point, I am of the opinion that Hopkins was in far better shape for the fight against Pavlik than he was with Joe.

I don't think he was any less fit for Calzaghe than Pavlik just the opponents and styles made it seem that way. Possibly also the weight.

I agree with the first sentence, but maintain that those weren't his best attributes against style like Calzaghe, if he has one. Reading a few of the posts I'm left thinking a lot of folk are probably considering this based on different ages of Hops as his so called prime. When was his prime?

Some of his best and most impressive wins were post 40 and he looked pretty damn active and good. Whose to say a lot of the changes weren't also the new weight? The guys a freak and also unique in that he'd also receive one of the least consensuses of when his prime really was.

A Hopkins of just say 2001 when he'd just had one of his best performance in beating Trinidad, he was aged about 36. This is a late physical prime by most standards but given his strongest most unique strengths developing to be defence, slick ness and countering, mixed with good accuracy and offence when the time was right, I think he was probably of most threat to Joe then. However, in 2002 Hopkins turned the fight down effectively by doing the deal then doubling the price.

That would have been a close fight. However, Calzaghe was having some good offensive performances at this time with the occasional bad one too, but using more power too. If Calzaghe protects his belt and reign, doesn't take risks, then why risk it against a guy he and Warren think he'd lose to? By this point he was pretty mature and clever about things. His game plan, tactics and adaptability skills were coming into there own by this point aswell. So it's impossible to tell for sure how that would have gone. I'd probably just favour a Calzaghe decision as I think he'd find a way and even with a knock down there's no way it's KOing him or hindering him much, if anything the contrary and he was hurting people at that time.

[Dan...]

I don't think he was any less fit for Calzaghe than Pavlik just the opponents and styles made it seem that way. Possibly also the weight.

I agree with the first sentence, but maintain that those weren't his best attributes against style like Calzaghe, if he has one. Reading a few of the posts I'm left thinking a lot of folk are probably considering this based on different ages of Hops as his so called prime. When was his prime?

Some of his best and most impressive wins were post 40 and he looked pretty damn active and good. Whose to say a lot of the changes weren't also the new weight? The guys a freak and also unique in that he'd also receive one of the least consensuses of when his prime really was.

A Hopkins of just say 2001 when he'd just had one of his best performance in beating Trinidad, he was aged about 36. This is a late physical prime by most standards but given his strongest most unique strengths developing to be defence, slick ness and countering, mixed with good accuracy and offence when the time was right, I think he was probably of most threat to Joe then.

That would be a close fight. However, Calzaghe was having some good offensive performances at this time with the occasional bad one too, but using more power too. He's game plan, tactics and adaptability skills were coming into there own by this point aswell. So it's impossible to tell for sure.

I said it would be a close fight. I just give BHop the edge given what i saw in their fight.

[BetterCallSaul]

this shouldn't even be close. a 43 year old Hopkins almost beat a prime Calzaghe.

Prime Calzaghe?

This this fight take place between 1997-2003. The 1997-2003 Calzaghe stops both Kessler and Lacy.