Calzaghe SMW greatest of all time?

[DiegoFuego]

Roy Jones and James Toney have better wins at SMW than Calzaghe does. How sad is that?

[OptimusWolf]

in terms of achievement, yes. I think in matchups against Toney or RJJ he might struggle though. So it is a qualified yes.

[Deadbirds]

Calzaghe == Ottke? Seriously?

Look, I'll accept that Joe - like all home fighters - has benefited from the occasional bit of dubious judging. But there's no comparison with the outrageous robberies that Ottke has had handed to him.

Anyone who claims otherwise hasn't watched any Ottke fights and is thus talking out of his ass.

I'm not saying they are equal in skill ! But if your gonna judge someone who built up a alot of defenses fighting average fighters ! They both are equal in that department ! And if your gonna rate Calslappy number one on those accomplishments might as well make Ottke number 2 !

[OptimusWolf]

Who, diego? Barkley - easy KO for young joe, easy decision, late stoppage for old joe.

who I ask?

[OptimusWolf]

and what dubious judging has calzaghe benefitted from? The judge who scored for hopkins was on something, that was 115-112 calzaghe and an easy fight to score IMO.

What other fight has been anywhere near controversial? The only one is Robin Reid, and I'm betting none have you have even seen that fight.

[DiegoFuego]

Joe's career is a big gap of wasted time. He's a good fighter, but he never proved he was a great fighter because he spent his "best years" hiding from competition.

[OptimusWolf]

good answer. I give the forums a go again after getting bored by various inane obsessions mostly based on brit/mayweather/european/ bashing and you're still here polluting the place.

[bsrizpac]

and what dubious judging has calzaghe benefitted from? The judge who scored for hopkins was on something, that was 115-112 calzaghe and an easy fight to score IMO.

What other fight has been anywhere near controversial? The only one is Robin Reid, and I'm betting none have you have even seen that fight.

Robin Reid as you stated.

We've all seen that. Calzaghe is not some exclusive super secret decoder club that makes you some sort of boxing expert, sorry.

He's mostly benefited from sitting on his ass fighting nobodies then when everyone is crippled and old showing up and suddenly becoming a "legend killer"

[Dan...]

Joe's career is a big gap of wasted time. He's a good fighter, but he never proved he was a great fighter because he spent his "best years" hiding from competition.

This may be true. It obviously depends on your perspective, but no doubt there were several years there where he didn't seem to fight a top guy.

It still doesn't change the fact that Calzaghe should be rated as the number 1 SMW of all time. You say Toney has better wins at SMW than Calzaghe? Barkley? Is Barkley better than Kessler?

[OptimusWolf]

Don't claim to be an expert - just ask people who make claims to back them up. I thought Reid Calzaghe was close and difficult to score, but wouldn't say it was 'benefitting from home-town judging', especially seeing as it was in England against an english fighter and was scored a SD.

Hopkins was good enough to school the middleweight king, so he's obviously not too old yet.

Weak analysis. Calzaghe did waste a lot of his best years fighting substandard opposition, but he's got several very good wins on his resume, and other greats have plenty of weak fighters (and losses) on their resumes.