Grade a fighter day 30: What grade do you give Joe Calzaghe?

[IronDanHamza]

B at best.

Good fighter but incredibly poor resume.

[E-Thug]

B at best.

Good fighter but incredibly poor resume.

Exactly the correct answer, thank goodness some sense is present

He's a solid B. Signature wins are a hype job in Lacy, Roy's corpse, old Hopkins and a great win in Kessler

Only fought 3 top 5 ranked opponents his entire 46 fight career. That is utterly pathetic. Ward fought more top 5 ranked opponents in less fights

When you make the number of title defences that Calzaghe made with that number of top 5 ranked opponents fought throughout, that's unarguable proof of how overrated he was

And before anyone starts crying, I'm a Brit too as is IronDan. This guy is nowhere near the greatest fighter to come out of our shores

[dan_cov]

B/B+ based more on his accomplishments than anything else.

He beat Eubank at the tale end of his career that took the fight on short notice and dropped down from CW, practically a zombie then wasted a decade or more racking up defenses of the WBO vs absolute bums on the Cardiff ice rink winning probably about half of those by the most ridiculously head scratching stoppages ever seen in a British ring.
He then beat Jeff Lacy who is quite possibly the most overrated fighter in history. Full credit for Kessler his best win by far.
I don't put much stock if any into him beating RJJ or B-Hop at that stage of their careers.
I thought he benefit from gift decisions vs a 44yr old Hopkins and certainly against Robin Reid.

He didn't take no risks what so ever until he was not too far from approaching 40.

Like look over the list of fighters he avoided or could have fought.

[Beercules]

I like Calslappy

[E-Thug]

B/B+ based more on his accomplishments than anything else.

He beat Eubank at the tale end of his career that took the fight on short notice and dropped down from CW, practically a zombie then wasted a decade or more racking up defenses of the WBO vs absolute bums on the Cardiff ice rink winning probably about half of those by the most ridiculously head scratching stoppages ever seen in a British ring.
He then beat Jeff Lacy who is quite possibly the most overrated fighter in history. Full credit for Kessler his best win by far.
I don't put much stock if any into him beating RJJ or B-Hop at that stage of their careers.
I thought he benefit from gift decisions vs a 44yr old Hopkins and certainly against Robin Reid.

He didn't take no risks what so ever until he was not too far from approaching 40.

Like look over the list of fighters he avoided or could have fought.

Big facts Dan, totally forgot the Hopkins fight was a split decision which he barely got past by and yes, Calzaghe's stoppages are pretty much the textbook definition of British stoppages, whereby the ref jumps in whenever he wants to end a fight

Also he said the following quotes

Calzaghe added: "I'm not chasing after Roy Jones. Be honest, Roy Jones is a good fighter and I don't want tough fights, I just want big money.

"He had also spent the Jones build-up watching footage of Jones' glory years, when he was at his peak, on You Tube.
"Connor was sobbing 'dad, he is amazing' and I tried to reassure him 'don't worry son, Jones isn't that good anymore.'


Anyone voting him anything above B don't know **** about boxing

[HitmanTommy]

the grades are very close in this one

[HitmanTommy]

Poll closes in a couple of hours.

[HitmanTommy]

This poll has officially been closed.

Thank you all for participating.

[NorvernRob]

Got to love the references to an ‘ancient Hopkins’. Were you guys even watching boxing back then? Hopkins was still Ring magazine P4P #3 and his previous 2 fights were wins v Tarver and Winky Wright. He then beat Pavlik in his next fight.

Simple fact is Hopkins was an anomaly when it came to age and was still a formidable fighter in his 40’s.

It’s easy to class Lacy as a bum now, but back then he was the favourite in the fight and most people expected him to beat Joe. Instead he got a life-changing beating.

And as for the people scoring Calzaghe a ‘B’, you need to be banned from the forum for ******ity. The guy was EXTREMELY hard to beat due to his phenomenal workrate, ability and good chin.

[hugh grant]

I like jc and I think a b+ to A- might be fair although I want more f or him. I want jc to be a A+. The real greats are A+ like the pacs, srr, Ali then you can't have jc quite there.