Tweet
As some of you are aware, I'm a big Mayweather fan and a mild Calzaghe hater. I respect both of them for having beaten some great fighters and for having hall of fame worthy career accomplishments. I think it's very safe to say that Mayweather's accomplishments and level of opposition was better than Calzaghe's, but neither really came close accomplishing everything that they could have in the sport.
My main criticism of the two is that they didn't try to break the 49-0 record. I know the 49-0 record is somewhat padded and that it'd have been more important if Calzaghe and Mayweather had fought more tough, intriguing fights rather than just fight on for the sake of reaching the record. With that caveat though, I don't really think retiring undefeated means too much if you don't have at least 50 fights.
50 fights in a career is very possible and retiring short of that just leaves way too much time open for the critique that a fighter just retired undefeated because they wanted to remain undefeated. I think that was a secondary reason for both Mayweather and Calzaghe, but I don't think there's any doubt that it was a reason for both.
The reason why I'm posting this is because I think too many posts on this board are about Mayweather and Calzaghe and thoughts on who they might have lost to or whatever and the fact is that we won't and/or couldn't know. That is the injustice of their retirement. They left us with the feeling that their great careers were still incomplete...even after all of their accomplishments. So, we post on message boards with wild speculation that for the most part is unfounded.
My main criticism of the two is that they didn't try to break the 49-0 record. I know the 49-0 record is somewhat padded and that it'd have been more important if Calzaghe and Mayweather had fought more tough, intriguing fights rather than just fight on for the sake of reaching the record. With that caveat though, I don't really think retiring undefeated means too much if you don't have at least 50 fights.
50 fights in a career is very possible and retiring short of that just leaves way too much time open for the critique that a fighter just retired undefeated because they wanted to remain undefeated. I think that was a secondary reason for both Mayweather and Calzaghe, but I don't think there's any doubt that it was a reason for both.
The reason why I'm posting this is because I think too many posts on this board are about Mayweather and Calzaghe and thoughts on who they might have lost to or whatever and the fact is that we won't and/or couldn't know. That is the injustice of their retirement. They left us with the feeling that their great careers were still incomplete...even after all of their accomplishments. So, we post on message boards with wild speculation that for the most part is unfounded.
Comment