Calzaghe haters need to STFU!!!

[Pullcounter]

Hopkins has a better WW resume than most.

if that's true, then calz's win over hopkins doesn't mean much then?

Calzaghe would put the same beating if not worse than the one Hopkins put on him. Besides if he would of fought him, you guys would probably add another American name or/and add him to the list of out of prime guys Cal beat.

yeah, in hindsight calz would be pavlik, but you have to actually fight the fight to get credit.

Pavlik is getting accused of ducking Paul Williams right now. So why shouldn't Joe Calzaghe be held to the same standards when it comes to Glen Johnson?

actually calz should be held to higher standards because he is so "legendary".

[Frank Martin]

He didnt do enough to be considered ATG. Old Bhop and RJJ are just a ticket for his legacy. But he got satisfied with it and retired without even having a rematch on Hopkins.

[Dave Rado]

Yeah I agree the best you will get is "calzaghe was ok, BUT he loses to Jones, Hopkins, Toney, Mclellan and pretty much any american smw-lhw who ever lived"

The best serious analysis you'll get is articles like Cliff Rold's one here. There have been similar serious analyses in The Ring and other US publications. You're confusing serious boxing fans with haters.

[Dave Rado]

Calzaghe could've stuck around and fought Chad Dawson. And you know what, I would make Calzaghe a heavy favorite in that fight

That's the whole point. Outside of hardcore boxing fandom, the fight would have generated little interest back then. His hardcore fans (including me) would have preferred him to have one more fight against Dawson, but casual fans hadn't even heard of Dawson back then. You're failing to take into account that he had been planning to retire when he did for around 2 years, and it would have needed something pretty special to motivate him to postpone his retirement. If he couldn't get motivated any more, he shouldn't fight. And as you say, he'd have been the overwhelming favourite to win back then, so it would have been hard to generate a lot of excitement in the press.

He doesn't owe anyone anything, it's his arse on the line in the ring, not boxing fans' arses.

He said in many interviews that if he had continued, then Dawson would have been his next fight, but that at that time, Dawson hadn't yet got the crossover recognition of a Pacquiao or a Mayweather, and that it would take a mega-fight with someone of that stature to motivate him to postpone a retirement that he had been planning for two years. It was just unfortunate that Dawson came along a year or two too late - if he'd made a bigger name for himself by then, they would have fought.

[Dave Rado]

cause calz was showboating against a shot rjj. that's like you whipping your 3 year old son in basketball and talking smack to him. its the ultimate in douche baggery.

Past prime, not shot. Roy beat Lacy much more convincingly than Taylor did. He's not shot.

And as someone else pointed out, RJJ showboated against a shot Lacy and no one criticised him for doing that,

Plus Calzaghe and RJJ are friends and were at that time. He wasn't trying to humiliate him, he was just having fun showing off. Roy didn't mind, even at the time - he was even singing to Joe in the ring.

There are serious double standards going on here.

[Dave Rado]

If Warren is to blame for Calzaghe not getting the big fights, then why did Calzaghe fight Roy Jones at the time he was free from Frank Warren when nobody was interested in it?

That was a big fight. People were interested in it. It got a lot of press coverage and it gave him the biggest payday of his career, despite the relatively low PPV figures. Quite a few people, including many boxing analysts thought that even a past prime Jones could still beat Calzaghe, especially after he'd looked good against Trinidad. Read the press reports of the time if you don't believe me. A lot of people were speculating that Roy would beat Calzaghe and then set up a rematch with Hopkins. Even Hopkins thought and hoped that might happen, which is why he attended the fight.

No one said Roy was shot before the fight - they said that he was well past his prime but that he might have one more great performance still in him

And Calzaghe had wanted to fight Jones for many years but hadn't been a big enough name to tempt Jones when Roy was in his prime. He took the first serious opportunity he got. It was similar to Lewis fighting a way past his prime Tyson. It was just a glamour fight for him to close out on, and the chance to finally fight Roy. It doesn't do much - if anything - for his legacy, any more than beating a badly faded Tyson should do anything for Lewis's - but no one criticises Lewis for taking that fight with Tyson.

[Dave Rado]

Pavlik is getting accused of ducking Paul Williams right now. So why shouldn't Joe Calzaghe be held to the same standards when it comes to Glen Johnson?

Pavlik isn't ducking Williams - but he did duck Abraham.

Anyone who thinks he's ducking Williams is an idiot and no one with half a brain thinks that.

The reasons he's been criticised over the Williams fight are the reports from his own camp of missed doctor's appointments and of him being unfit. Those reports have lost lost him the respect of many fans but it's not the same thing as ducking. If he hadn't wanted to fight Williams he wouldn't have signed the contract.

[daggum]

Hopkins has a better WW resume than most.

calzaghe has a great middleweight resume. hopkins, jones jr, eubank? what the hell these are all blown up middlweights. it's pretty pathetic he has to fight these smaller guys to feel good about himself.

[Dave Rado]

actually calz should be held to higher standards because he is so "legendary".

That's called a "straw man" (a straw man argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.)

Calzaghe is legendary in purely British terms but not in world terms. No credible boxing historian would rate him outside the top 5 or so British fighters of all time, so in purely UK terms it's not a stretch to call him legendary. But no one other than really extreme nuthuggers would call him legendary in world terms. Nevertheless, most serious boxing historians would rate him near the bottom (in the 80-100 range) of the ATG list - or a few would have him just outside the top 100 but only just outside it.

If you define ATG as meaning the top 100 fighters of all time, then the majority of boxing historians would rate him as an ATG, but only near the bottom of the list. He is lower than Roy Jones in the list, and a lot lower than Hopkins. He can't be even mentioned in the same breath as top 50 ATG fighters like Leonard, and isn't even on the same planet as top 10 fighters like Ali. But to pretend that he isn't in or at least close to the top 100 of all time is just delusional.

Legendary, though, implies being near the top of the list, and in those terms, he's only legendary in a purely UK context. No Calzaghe fan who knows anything about boxing would claim he's in the top 50 of the world ATG list or that he's legendary in world terms. So you're using a straw man argument.

[daggum]

That's called a "straw man" (a straw man argument is an logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.)

Calzaghe is legendary in purely British terms but not in world terms. No credible boxing historian would rate him outside the top 5 or so British fighters of all time, so in purely UK terms it's not a stretch to call him legendary. But no one other than really extreme nuthuggers would call him legendary in world terms. Nevertheless, most serious boxing historians would rate him near the bottom (inn the 80-100 range) of the ATG list - or a few would have him just outside the top 100 but only just outside it.

If you define ATG as meaning the top 100 fighters of all time, then the majority of boxing historians would rate him as an ATG, but only near the bottom of the list. He is lower than Roy Jones in the list, and a lot lower than Hopkins. He can't be even mentioned in the same breath as top 50 ATG fighters like Leonard, and isn't even on the same planet as top 10 fighters like Ali. But to pretend that he isn't in or at least close to the top 100 of all time is just delusional.

Legendary, though, implies being near the top of the list, and in those terms, he's only legendary in a purely UK context. No Calzaghe fan who knows anything about boxing would claim he's in the top 50 of the world ATG list or that he's legendary in world terms. So you're using a straw man argument.

those don't exist though