Hatton, Froch, Macca React To Calzaghe's Retirement

[Puntoyhauf]

This childish argument is boring - please could you take it off line?

Take away all the silly ridiculing, playing with semantics, and disingenuous pretend misunderstandings, what's left in summary is just this:

KrisSilver: Prior to his fight with Calzaghe, Kessler cleaned out the top fighters in the division.

Technical_Skill: Yes, but it was a very weak division.

End of discussion.

(It also misses the point somewhat, because the reason many pundits had expected Kessler to beat Calzaghe was because of the manner in which he had dominated his opponents, showing real skill and power).

They really got into you huh?! I'm really enjoying it. And it's much better here than offline. I thought I was the only audience.

[flat1985]

lol Froch is a right knob

[Technical_Skill]

They really got into you huh?! I'm really enjoying it. And it's much better here than offline. I thought I was the only audience.

I can see what Silver is trying to say, im not sure it translates so rigidly into the world of boxing. Being ranked in the top 10 of a division by doesnt always make you one of best or most skilled of a group, because rankings are subjective not facts, you may rank one fighter at no 10 in the world, another might disagree.

Because if that is the case, then on feb 1st 2009 Issac Hlatswayo became an elite fighter because ring magazine put a number 10 next to his name.

Can you imagine if floyd mayweather came out of retirement on feb 1st 2009 and beats Issac Hlatswayo, has mayweather beaten another 'elite' fighter cos Hlatswayo was ranked no 10 by ring magazine?

I watched Kessler vs Haussler, same old **** from Kessler really, he is nowhere near as special as some of the calzaghe marks on here portray him to be, before the fight when people were saying Calzaghe was ducking kessler they were the first to say kessler was overrated and hadnt done anything significant, as soon as calzaghe won they portrayed him to be some great fighter cos he hit calzaghe with a few uppercuts

And to dave rado, most pundits i saw thought calzaghe would win, Kessler is a good fighter in an okay division.

[Dave Rado]

I certainly agree Kessler isn't great, although I'd rate him as very good rather than just good. Most people seem to think he'd beat Taylor, for instance.

Tribute from Sugar Ray Leonard:

"You have to deal with the hands you were dealt," said Leonard.

"You can't please all of the fans, all of the time. There will always be someone that will say you should have fought someone.

"Joe Calzaghe was supposed to be an easy opponent for Jeff Lacy to annihilated and that was a huge, huge upset for the boxing critics and historians and even myself and I didn't think Joe could beat Jeff Lacy.

"But the way he choreographed the fight was so impressive

"And even though Roy Jones was past his best, he was expected to beat Joe with his handspeed and knowledge.

"Joe has proven himself and beaten everyone that people claimed he couldn't beat with class - and that is respectful.

"Joe was a special kind of fighter."

[Technical_Skill]

I certainly agree Kessler isn't great, although I'd rate him as very good rather than just good. Most people seem to think he'd beat Taylor, for instance.

Tribute from Sugar Ray Leonard:

"You have to deal with the hands you were dealt," said Leonard.

"You can't please all of the fans, all of the time. There will always be someone that will say you should have fought someone.

"Joe Calzaghe was supposed to be an easy opponent for Jeff Lacy to annihilated and that was a huge, huge upset for the boxing critics and historians and even myself and I didn't think Joe could beat Jeff Lacy.

"But the way he choreographed the fight was so impressive

"And even though Roy Jones was past his best, he was expected to beat Joe with his handspeed and knowledge.

"Joe has proven himself and beaten everyone that people claimed he couldn't beat with class - and that is respectful.

"Joe was a special kind of fighter."

Sugar ray says lots of things.

Joe is world class, no doubt about it.

One of the hardest fighters to beat in the sport no doubt about it.

But....imo.

He ruled one of the worst divisions in boxing, no doubt about it.

Would have lost to Jones and Hopkins in their primes, no doubt about it.

Would have lost to James Toney, no doubt about it.

And in about 10 years he seemed to miss just about every prime threat there was in and around his weight class. For a while now people wanted to see him against a chad dawson or a prime threat in and around his weight class. Instead his idea of a career defining fight was against the shottest of the shot roy jones, a fight which many fans think was pointless. This is part of the reason why he is doubted as an all time great.

No doubt about it.

[Dave Rado]

Sugar ray says lots of things.

Joe is world class, no doubt about it.

One of the hardest fighters to beat in the sport no doubt about it.

But....imo.

He ruled one of the worst divisions in boxing, no doubt about it.

Would have lost to Jones and Hopkins in their primes, no doubt about it.

Would have lost to James Toney, no doubt about it.

And in about 10 years he seemed to miss just about every prime threat there was in and around his weight class. For a while now people wanted to see him against a chad dawson or a prime threat in and around his weight class. Instead his idea of a career defining fight was against the shottest of the shot roy jones, a fight which many fans think was pointless. This is part of the reason why he is doubted as an all time great.

No doubt about it.

Your opinions are certainly arguable but they're only opinions. I certainly don't think Calzaghe could have beaten a prime Jones, although I think he could have given him a competitive fight. I think he'd have had an outside chance against Toney, and a fairly good chance against Hopkins. And it's well documented that Hopkins did duck him in 2002.

Toney is a bit of a red herring anyway, because he'd already moved up in weight by the time Calzaghe won his first title.

The discussions about why those fights didn't happen have been played out so often in these forums they've become boring and I don't want to have that argument again. But to exclusively blame Calzaghe for them not happening is ignorant. More than anything, I'd blame his living in an obscure Welsh valley - if he'd been American, it's much more likely some of those fights would have happened.

I heard no-one calling for him to fight Dawson until after he had beaten Jones - before that they were calling for him to fight Pavlik, not Dawson; and some boxing experts I read agreed with his own assessment that he'd have beaten Pavlik more easily than he beat Jones. I also read quite a lot of articles before the Jones fight predicting that Jones would win.

I too would have liked him to end with a fight against Dawson after the Jones fight, but outside of hardcore boxing fandom Dawson is not yet a big name - and is not a top 10 P4P fighter - and I can understand why at this stage in his career he couldn't get excited about that as his final fight. I also think that arguably it would have been a setback for the Light Heavyweight division if Calzaghe had convincingly beaten Dawson and then immediately retired - the division would then have had a much less credible champion. And I think Calzaghe would have been the strong favourite to beat Dawson.

Calzaghe said recently: "If I was at a weight category where I could fight the likes of Ricky Hatton, Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather, then it would be a different story, they are fighters to carry on for." In other words at this stage in his career, he needed to fight a P4P fighter in order to get excited enough to continue, and I think that's understandable.

I respect your opinions without agreeing with all of them, I don't claim that there is no doubt that I am right, and I don't resort to ridicule.