Can we all agree that Calzaghe ****ed up in fighting RJJ and not Pavlik?

[Abstraction]

Yeah legacy-wise.

But essentially as a human-being, you're taking the fight that's worth more money.

I guess Pav/Calzaghe would have been pretty big, if they marketed it right. But RJJ is RJJ.

Sometimes, we have to remind ourselves-that it is prizefighting. Ask yourself who would you fight? if you were Joe Calzaghe.

The thing is Joe Calzaghe fans' get accused of putting Joe Calzaghe on a pedastal but anyone who crtiques Joe continuously puts him on one far higher.

Joe should do this, Joe should do that. Yeah, we hope he would do this and that, but what he does, is what makes the most sense, you know...like a normal person.

Joe Calzaghe can rightuflly fight who he wants.

IF he wants to fight fo the money, so be it. It's him in the ring. It's him who is making the money, so it's his choice.

But it's BS when he goes on about how big he is beating a 'Legend like RJJ' and who he is a "lenger-Killer". Especially his obnoxious fans saying How get beat a Prime RJJ (lol).

IF u fight for the money, fair-play, just cut the crap

[MACAQUEINBLACK]

Calzaghe missed a big oppurtunity in my opinion. Pavlik was a big star and beating him would've elvated his status.

Pavlik wasn't really that big. He was in the ascendent, but his star status was only burgeoning in reality, the rest was a lot of hope and hype on HBO's part.

Calzaghe should take the opportunity to fight Dawson. He isn't the golden boy Pavlik is/was, but if held in Wales that fight is a guaranteed big deal, especially if branded as Joe's career swansong, and much more impressive for his legacy if he wins. I'll be disappointed if it doesn't happen.

[Porter's Dad]

This is an interesting point, but more nuanced than you present it. So much of the acclaim Hopkins received had to do with his underdog status in the fight and the 'rolling back the years' fashion in which he won it, after a few years of cagey, less aggressive performances, Kelly's path of destruction, Hopkins' age combined with coming off the Calzaghe 'loss', which a lot of people took as proof of him being done and saw him written off in some quarters. Joe would have been the favorite against Pavlik, and so would have gotten less acclaim for giving Pavlik a boxing lesson.

I don't see how slapping Pavlik up would have done much more for Joe than roughing up Roy did. The difference is, Roy Jones Jr. is a better name to have on your rap sheet, and, still a more lucrative fight, even if 225k in PPV sales isn't setting any records.

Good point regarding Hopkins vs Pavlik. Hops definitely has received more acclaim than Slappy would have done for beating Pavlik because of all the factors you mention.

But I think Slappy would have gained alot of respect for going for Pavlik. It was the fight people were calling for. And then to fight the man you say was "shot" in your autobiography...

IMHO, the RJJ fight does jack **** for his legacy. I mean, you'll never ever hear a Calzaghe fan cite it when discussing his legacy. To me, it's a totally trivial fight. So what if he made a couple more million than he would have done fighting Pavlik? That fight is meaningless.

Beating down Pavlik would have meant so much more.

[Addition]

Pavlik wasn't really that big. He was in the ascendent, but his star status was only burgeoning in reality, the rest was a lot of hope and hype on HBO's part.

Calzaghe should take the opportunity to fight Dawson. He isn't the golden boy Pavlik is/was, but if held in Wales that fight is a guaranteed big deal, especially if branded as Joe's career swansong, and much more impressive for his legacy if he wins. I'll be disappointed if it doesn't happen.

Okay then, a rising star. America doesn't have a big star in boxing but Pavlik was soon becoming one.

[Clegg]

His win against Hopkins gets more credit, yes. But its essentially riding on the coat-tails of another man's win. He should have done it himself.

He should have, but I'm not sure how much more credit he would've gotten.

Many people had tried to devalue the win over Hopkins and say that it was meaningless. They can't really do that now.

Calzaghe had problems making 175, so I assume that is the weight he would face Pavlik at (rather than 170). If so, we'd have the weight excuse played quite a bit IMO.

Also, let's imagine Abraham beats Pavlik. Hopkins' win over Pavlik will not be worth as much, but it won't matter because Hopkins didn't just beat Pavlik, he showed that he could still put on a fantastic display of skill, timing and even speed for 12 full rounds without tiring, holding or any 'accidental' headbutts. So people will still recognise that Hopkins was not shot regardless.

Now let's say Calzaghe beat Pavlik, then Abraham did. It would leave Calzaghe with a win over a Hopkins that people would say is meaningless because he was shot, and a win over Pavlik who was 15lbs above his best weight who then got KTFO when he faced another top opponent.

As someone who thinks that Abraham will beat Pavlik, I think Calzaghe's choice of opposition in 2008 was the best one for his legacy. But of course that's just an opinion based upon a prediction of future events, so

Going for RJJ proved nothing. Even the detractors couldn't have argued that Slappy picking a young, prime opponent that everyone wanted him to fight was a bad thing.

Not everyone wanted that fight. There was a poll on here that was dead even last time I looked.

And, sadly, I think that beating Jones did prove something to many people. Maybe not to you and I, but there are a large number of people that rate the win over Jones higher than the win over Kessler. Posters like Mizzou made 100 anti-Zag threads, but then suddenley wanted to give him some manlove after the Jones fight.

So yeah, I agree that he should have fought Pavlik and deserves criticism for not doing so, but I'm not sure if it would have helped his legacy all that much.

[egreezy]

If he beat Pavlik less people would have been asking for him to fight Dawson and Johnson; now he got people asking for harder fights for him.

[MACAQUEINBLACK]

And then to fight the man you say was "shot" in your autobiography...

Yeah, not a good look. The bumbling backtracking on that actually made it look worse.

"B-b-b-ut, Woy has looked good since then, he beat a bloated Tito, who knew?"



He should have just said nothing.

IMHO, the RJJ fight does jack **** for his legacy. I mean, you'll never ever hear a Calzaghe fan cite it when discussing his legacy. To me, it's a totally trivial fight. So what if he made a couple more million than he would have done fighting Pavlik? That fight is meaningless.

Beating down Pavlik would have meant so much more.

I can testify, as a long time Calzaghe watcher --- in legacy terms, it meant sweet fuck all. In spectacle terms, it was a fascinatingly grisly piece of sports theatre, boxing as commedia dell'arte with Calzaghe shrugging his shoulders and answering the contempt heaped on him by living up to the role his detractors cast him in with gusto, Il Capitano, the braggart coward acting flash while beating up on an old, shot man. Tough to watch if you care at all for Roy Jones Jr, but compelling.

Pavlik wouldn't have meant a whole lot, though, in truth. The usual suspects on here would find holes to pick in a Dawson win, but ultimately it would mean a great deal more than beating Jones Jr. '08 and Pavlik combined. In my opinion.

[x-PeROxiDE-x]

I think he ****ed up.....a win over an UNDEFEATED young fighter in his prime in America would've shut the critics up for good......but the door remains open for the critics to throw shots because there's too much visual evidence to see that RJJ is done and has been done for a while....since Kelly had just beat the tea outta poor Gary Lockett and it looked like Enzo told Joe "NO......not this guy"........thats what it seemed like.

Is this what it has come to again?

When are people going to stop comparing Calzaghe to Gary fucking Lockett?

Are you Serious?

Pavlik was undefeated. Everybody wanting Calzaghe to face Pavlik.

Fact of the matter is, if Pavlik beat Hopkins, Calzaghe still would have made an excuse.
No way does Calzaghe go Prime v Prime against an undefeated proven prospect like Pavlik. Not the Calzaghe way i guess.

It really irks me, Calzaghe has done this throughout his career. The guy has so much talent, but this is all he does. Ducks and Dodges.

Kessler, Lacy, Veit, Delaney, etc, etc.

exactly man .....when did it become cool to get credit for the next man's work? ......that junk about Calz's gift over B-Hop looks bigger because of his total destruction of Pavlik is BS.....I never feed into that, but alot of peeps base their ratings of fighters off that type of garbage...its wrong and unfair to the fighters.

It doesn't mean he gets credit for another mans work.

All it means is that a lot of the detractors could no longer (honestly) say he beat a shot B Hop, because of the superb performance Hopkins still had left in him.

I don't give Joe credit for beating the man who beat the man, but I give him more credit because Hops was not as shot as I thought he was.

Imagine RJJ came back and took Chad Dawson to school. (never gunna happen, but bear with me)

Calzaghe would get more credit for the Jones win, because it would prove that Roy is not as shot as he looked, and he only appeared that way because he was outclassed by Calzaghe.

No triangle theory, these fights just prove that the quality of Joe's opponents was higher than most give credit for.