So who did Joe Calzaghe duck?

[IMDAZED]

Quite easily actually. If a fighter turns down a fight, he should have a better fighter lined up immediately, otherwise its a clear duck. The fact that at the time, it was Hopkins biggest payday just makes it an even worse case of ducking.

You cant wait 3/4 years and say "ha see told you".

The Calzaghe fight wasn't immediate either.

[Chaos]

Calzaghe, 5-years after being 168lb champ and talking on his career-defining fight with Jones Jr: ''I know my capabilities and unless I got paid the crown ***els I wouldn't want to risk it.''

IF (an in-his-prime) Hopkins avoided Calzaghe, why call out Calzaghe and fight him at 43-years old. C'mon. The list is endless. Calzaghe was a good but very well managed fighter.

Hop wanted to fight Calzaghe later on cause by that time Joe was very popular and he could make money off him. In 02 when Hop ducked, Joe wasn't as big of a name moneywise.

[Chaos]

The Calzaghe fight wasn't immediate either.

Wow you're pretty thick aren't you. The Calzaghe fight was the purpose of the deal, it doesn't matter what when it was going to happen.

[Chaos]

Roy Jones, Joe may or may not have ducked him. Doubt Roy would have bothered with a fight against him anyway if you look at the level of Jones' opposition through those years, and he couldn't even fight his rival in his division for years, Michaelczewksi. There is a quote out there of Joe saying he would never fight Roy, there are also the post fight interviews where Joe calls Roy out.

Glen Johnson, Joe pulled out of a fight with him a few times through injury and personal problems. It's the equivalent of saying Vitali ducked Rahman. It was unfortunate it never happened, but Glen Johnson had a poor record at SMW and wouldn't have added much to Joe's resume there.

Ottke and Beyer, bit of joke, they never would have fought Joe. They never left Germany, and they couldn't even fight each other and that would've been a massive fight in Germany.

As for Hopkins, I know Calzaghe definately didn't duck Hopkins. Infact it was clearly the other way round. Hopkins refused to fight him and ended up fighting the likes of Hakkar for $200K after turning down multiple millions to fight Joe.


Proof? Here's some from various sources...

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Jay Larkin, former head of showtime..

Jay Larkin, head of boxing for the American Showtime television, said: "With Bernard you never know. I think he comes to us from outer space sometimes. But a fight against Hopkins is a natural for Wales and we would like it to take place here."

Larkin confirmed that Hopkins last year agreed to a purse of £1.9million to go in against Calzaghe, only to demand double the money the very next day.
link

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"We have to get Joe to America and the right fight is Bernard Hopkins," said Showtime boxing chief Jay Larkin.

"Hopkins turned down a lot of money from us to fight Calzaghe last year, but after what Joe did to Mitchell we can up the ante and offer more."
link

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Jay Larkin in his book about negotiations..

..."A teleconference was set up in my office in New York for July 30th, 2002, and on the call was myself, Don King who was in the room, Frank Warren and Bernard Hopkins' lawyer, Arnold Joseph. Along with Arnold was a woman named Linda Carter, who was there on behalf of Bernard. We asked Arnold if Bernard wanted to fight Joe Calzaghe and we asked him how much money would he want if he did. The response we got was $3million and the fight would have to take place in the United States. After a little scratching of the head, we said 'Okay, done.' Frank Warren agreed on the spot, Don King agreed and we agreed so as far as we were concerned all parties were singing off the one hymm sheet. Arnold excused himself with Linda and I can only assume it was to call Bernard. Either that day or the next day, they came with a new demand: $6million, double the sum that had been agreed, the deal blew up.....he had then and still has no desire to fight Joe Calzaghe, that much is pretty clear."

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Hopkins himself confirming negotiations took place..

Hopkins stated: "Right now I'm negotiating along with Don King and Jay Larkin of Showtime. Who we spoke to and we're going to talk to him about two fights, maybe my mandatory too, which makes it a three-fight deal.

"It would be the mandatory, Harry Simon and Joe Calzaghe. While Calzaghe fights for that other super-middleweight title, I'll wait for that and knock off Simon after the mandatory and fight the WBO title."
link

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Roy Jones talking about the situation..

According to both King and Hopkins, the two worked out an agreement for Hopkins' next fight, no small accomplishment considering Hopkins spurned a $10.5 million three-fight Showtime offer made earlier this year that would have sent him into the ring to fight Morrade Hakkar, Joe Calzaghe and Harry Simon.

"He's desperate for a fight and he needs to fight me because he messed up his deal with Showtime," Jones Jr. said in the dressing room prior to Saturday's main event.
link

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Hopkins again..still ducking Joe in 2006 and not ashamed of it..

The original plan cooked up by Team Calzaghe was for Joe and Bernard to meet next March for a £10million showdown, according to the Sunday Mirror, but the never-at-a-loss-for-words Hopkins put a kibosh on those plans, not temporarily, but once and for all.

"Calzaghe is a good fighter but right now it would be a backward step for me," Hopkins said. "It is not a big enough fight right now and I need a big fight to get motivated. A fight against Maskaev would be exactly the type of fight I need."
link

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So there you go, Calzaghe gets a bad rap from ignorant Americans and his haters alike regarding Hopkins and it's completely unfair. We must remember Hopkins couldn't get the deal done with Roy Jones for their rematch when both were on top of the P4P lists, a fight he needed for his legacy. It's clear Hopkins didn't want either of those two guys from 2002-2007. Funnily enough both Hopkins and Jones came crawling to Joe for a payday when they had little to lose and he was top 2 or 3 P4P. No-one seems to see it like that though, it's always Joe fought them when they were old, utter bollocks

Nice work. I've always known this but been too lazy to look it up for the haters.

[IMDAZED]

Wow you're pretty thick aren't you. The Calzaghe fight was the purpose of the deal, it doesn't matter what when it was going to happen.

Yeah we get that. And? You can't say, he ducking a career high purse when obviously he got a career high purse elsewhere. Get over yourselves.

[egodfather]

Calzaghe fans will argue day and night that their hero was a great champion. But look at the FACTS: 16 of his 21 ''championship'' defenses were against boxers who were NOT top-10 super-middleweights when Calzaghe fought them. The WBO aka Warren Belt Organization were feeding Calzaghe top-100 WBO bums for Calzaghe to pad his record out with; Branco Sobot, Tocker Pudwill, Cadburys Salami ... let's not forget his famous 20th title defense against Peter Manfredo.

That's not to say Calzaghe doesn't have a few decent wins on his resume. But when it's all said and done, let's hear it from the horse's mouth ... in 2001 Calzaghe had been champion for 5-years, here's what he said on the prospect of facing Jones Jr in the lion's den: "I could probably give Jones a tough fight, probably the best fight he's ever had, but I know my capabilities and unless I got paid the crown ***els I wouldn't want to risk it”. Calzaghe wasn't in it for the legacy. He was in it for low-risk easy-money fights. 35,000 clowns watched him slap Manfredo to a ''TKO''.

You can literally break down Calzaghe's career:

Calzaghe fought twice in '98, against Branko Sobot & Juan Carlos Gimenez Ferreyra. Neither were in the top 10.

In 1999, he gets a SD against Robin Reid, the 9th rated contender who had just lost his championship. He then boxed Rick Thornberry who wasn't a ranked contender in the top 10.

In 2000, he boxed David Starie, Omar Sheika and Richie Woodhall. None of these guys were in the top 10.

In 2002, he boxed Charles Brewer, Miguel Angel Jimenez & Tocker Pudwill. Brewer was ranked 6th and the other two were nowhere to be seen.

In 2003, he boxed once against Byron Mitchell. Mitchell was ranked 6th.

In 2004, he boxed Mger Mkrtchyan & Kabary Salem. Neither were in the top 10.

In 2005, he boxed Mario Veit & Evans Ashira. Neither were in the top 10.

It was 2006 when he finally fought a top 5 rated contender in Lacy - NINE years after becoming ''champ''. He also boxed Sakio Bika in his following fight who wasn't ranked in the top 10.

He then had a farce against Manfredo in 2007 before beating Kessler to unify.

That's SIXTEEN fights against guys who weren't even in the top 10. This went on for a period of FIVE years.

Here you have it, the truth and the facts.

[Dirk Diggler UK]

Yeah we get that. And? You can't say, he ducking a career high purse when obviously he got a career high purse elsewhere. Get over yourselves.

Yeah he got it 4 years later which doesn't negate the original duck!

[IMDAZED]

Yeah he got it 4 years later which doesn't negate the original duck!

That would make sense if he was fighting Calzaghe next. He wasn't. I guess he ducked Harry Simon. Or Hakkar or whoever he was supposed to fight on Showtime.

[egodfather]

It just shows how delusional some of Calzaghe's fans are when they accuse B-Hop of ducking him: Dawson, Pascal, Jones Jr, Pavlik, Winky Wright, Tarver, Taylor, De La Hoya, Joppy, Felix Trinidad, Keith Holmes, Glen Johnson.

[IMDAZED]

It just shows how delusional some of Calzaghe's fans are when they accuse B-Hop of ducking him: Dawson, Pascal, Jones Jr, Pavlik, Winky Wright, Tarver, Taylor, De La Hoya, Joppy, Felix Trinidad, Keith Holmes, Glen Johnson.

And then actually fighting him at well over 40.