Comments Thread For: Froch on 'Bitter' Calzaghe: My Stats Smash His To Bits!

[SAJ10]

When you actually stop & ana lyse both records Joe has more World Champions and 2 better wins. Carl get recognition as his were back to back coz of the super 6.

Joe also Ring champ at 2 weights.

Joe

Eubank, Reid, SHeika (not Workd Champ beat GLen Johnson though), Woodhall, Brewer, Mitchell, Lacy, Bika, peak undefeated Kessler, Hopkins, Jones

Carl

Pascal (lost to Hopkins), Taylor, Darrell (not WWorld Champ), AA, Johnson, ButE, Kessler (well past his best), Groves (not World Champ yet).

As I said the level of opposition is the same Joe currently has 10 world champs and 2 better wins than Froch, and Joe was the man at 2 weights.

Froch currently has 6 and might get 8 with Groves & Dire ell.

In what planet this gives Froch a better resume I don't know, let alone the fact he was beaten by a worse version of Kessler & owned by Ward.

Froch opportunity had a higher profile due to Super 6 but were guys like AA, Taylor and Johnson, Groves better than the guys on Joe' s CV, simply no.

Carl never ducked anybody - only Degale, GGG, Hopkins at LHW, catch weight and SMW, Ward rematch... come on. the only guy he was prepared to fight at the end was Chave JR. He even took Groves before that fight because he thought he was the easy option.

[W1LLPARK3R]

I think Joe was more than content to fight whoever Frank put in front of him to be honest. Last year, Joe bragged to Carl (through the media) of his number of WBO title defences. But a lot of those defences were against B and C class fighters, and only a handful of them were actually mandatories. I also read an interview where Frank criticised Joe for wanting to fight a guy called Freeman Barr.

Sounds like Sour G****s from BRICKTOP..Joe coulda left him earlier, but simply beat everyone put in front of him..and Joe holds a victory over an ATG in Hopkins. Can't say the same for Carl...

[Mr. Philadel]

I agree with EVERYTHING Froch said!!

with that said....I really don't get the beef between Froch and Calz....I mean BOTH fighters are worthy of the HOF and they BOTH rep'd the UK well during their careers....Froch's wins stick out a bit more and his resume is more solid than Calz's imo but H2H you have to favor Calz imo....like I said, I think this beef between two of the BEST UK fighters EVER doesn't make sense...it's gotten quite childish as of late...if Tyson and Holyfield can become friends then I don't see why Froch and Calz can't squash their little rivalry and be friends as well

[SAJ10]

How is his resume better though?

People can say it but nobody can say why Or prove it.

Is he a 2 weight Ring champ... no.

Was he ever no.1no.1 in his division... no

Did he beat a prime undefeated version of Kessler... no

Did he lose to a shop worn version... yes

Has he got as many World Champs as JR. . No

Currently JC has 10 and CF only 6

Does he have 2 wins on his resume as good as a prime undefeated Kessler, and Hopkins a legend and ATG at LHW..no

Froch best win after Kessler Pascal lost to Hopkins years after the Calzaghe fight

If Froch oppobents are so great then how come he lost to a worse version of Kessler than Calzaghe beat ... they're only common Workd level opponent.

It seems like as Froch had a few tough back to back fights against high profile (because of the S 6) opponents everybody forgets about all the earlier World Champs Calzaghe fought pre Lacy of which there wrre 5, as if they don't count on his record.

[robertzimmerman]

When you actually stop & ana lyse both records Joe has more World Champions and 2 better wins. Carl get recognition as his were back to back coz of the super 6.

Joe also Ring champ at 2 weights.

Joe

Eubank, Reid, SHeika (not Workd Champ beat GLen Johnson though), Woodhall, Brewer, Mitchell, Lacy, Bika, peak undefeated Kessler, Hopkins, Jones

Carl

Pascal (lost to Hopkins), Taylor, Darrell (not WWorld Champ), AA, Johnson, ButE, Kessler (well past his best), Groves (not World Champ yet).

As I said the level of opposition is the same Joe currently has 10 world champs and 2 better wins than Froch, and Joe was the man at 2 weights.

Froch currently has 6 and might get 8 with Groves & Dire ell.

In what planet this gives Froch a better resume I don't know, let alone the fact he was beaten by a worse version of Kessler & owned by Ward.

Froch opportunity had a higher profile due to Super 6 but were guys like AA, Taylor and Johnson, Groves better than the guys on Joe' s CV, simply no.

Carl never ducked anybody - only Degale, GGG, Hopkins at LHW, catch weight and SMW, Ward rematch... come on. the only guy he was prepared to fight at the end was Chave JR. He even took Groves before that fight because he thought he was the easy option.

Yes, from a statistical standpoint, Joe has the better resume.

I'm not quite sure why Carl has mentioned stats. He'd have been better off wording things differently like he has in the past.

But statistics don't allow for circumstances. Carl will always receive more overall respect than Joe because he was more ambitious. I don't think Carl would ever have repeatedly defended the WBO belt against Joe's opposition, had he found himself in that same situation.

Now if you're going to be objective, Joe's wins weren't all that were they?

Eubank - Was faded, had lost twice to Collins, hadn't fought at SMW for 2 years, and hadn't won there for 3 years. He was also preparing to fight Mark Prince at LHW, when he took the Calzaghe fight on just 11 days notice. He also had no southpaw sparring and he'd got bad knees and couldn't do roadwork etc.

Reid - Gave Joe a close fight and then immediately lost to Branco. Although to be fair to Joe, I do believe that he'd been injured and was going through personal issues at the time. However, I'm of the opinion that Reid would always have given him a competetive fight.

Brewer and Mitchell were nothing special.

Woodhall was a good fighter, but retired after through injury.

Lacy - Joe's best performance. But in my opinion, Lacy was the favourite due to Joe being still relatively unknown to the U.S. fans at the time. Lacy looked the part, but in reality he hadn't beaten anyone of note.

Kessler - Prime and undefeated, but how much had he regressed when Carl fought him?

Hopkins - Joe's best win on paper. But it was an awful fight where Joe threw many more punches, whereas Hopkins landed the much cleaner shots. It was really quality vs quantity.

Roy Jones - A truly pointless fight after Joe had laughed that Roy was past his best and he'd said that he'd be dissapointed if it was to be his last fight.


So it's not like Joe has this great, superior resume.

But he was clearly more talented, and I think he'd definitely have beaten Carl in a fight. But you can certainly understand why Carl gets more respect.

Would Joe have fought Andre Ward and Lucian Bute? I'm not so sure.

Was Joe 'The Man' at two weights? I don't think so. I couldn't call him 'The Man' at LHW, for scraping by Hopkins overwhelming him with volume.

Joe could have moved to LHW much sooner than he did, to try and be 'The Man' yet he wasn't interested. This is what you've got to factor in when analysing both guys resumes. Carl never needed to go up to LHW. Because he was smaller than Joe and there were good fights for him at SMW. But things were different for Joe. There was no Super Six and he came at a time where the British legends had retired. Now of course, that wasn't his fault, and he was unlucky to be caught in the middle of the Benn/Eubank era and the Ward/Froch era. But the point is this, after he'd beaten Eubank and before Lacy and Kessler came on the scene, the SMW division that Joe fought in, was one of the weakest divisions in boxing.

All the big potential fights for Joe, were up at LHW. Now Joe flirted with the idea of going up for many years, yet he never did until 2008. That was despite the fact that he's 6ft, and he had a natural walking around weight of between 192-196 pounds, as well as claiming on numerous occasions that it was extremely difficult to make SMW. Not only that, back in the early 00's, he said he wanted bigger fights, as he'd never beaten a great fighter, and he'd done all he could at SMW. Yet he still never went up. In 2003, it was evident that he could never unify the SMW division with Ottke. And at that time, again Lacy and Kessler were nowhere to be seen. They'd done nothing at that point. So he couldn't unify, and there were no other big fights for him on the horizon. So that was the perfect opportunity for him to move up. The WBO also declared that because he'd defended their belt so many times at SMW, that if he'd have wished to have moved up to LHW, they would have made him the mandatory challenger to whoever held the belt at LHW at the time. (Either DM or Gonzalez) Yet despite everything I've wrote, he decided to remain at SMW, to fight the likes of Mkrtchyan and Salem etc. So this is where the criticism comes from. He had a great career, but it could have been better. The majority of his WBO reign was against weak opposition, and only a handful of those were mandatories, which makes things even worse. Not only that, the WBO wasn't respected back then, and they became a laughing stock with their bogus rankings and the Darrin Morris incident. If you don't know about that, Darrin Morris sadly died, but was then bizarrely MOVED UP the rankings.

So although Joe was better, I think Carl deserves more respect from the fans.

Carl never had the skills to match his ambition.

Whereas Joe never had the ambition to match his skills.

[Foreign Soil]

Froch was never actually the champ of his weight class, and he lost to a more faded version of Kessler. You could argue he wasn't even 2nd best at his weight for the majority of his career.

Calzaghe > Froch.

[robertzimmerman]

Sounds like Sour G****s from BRICKTOP..Joe coulda left him earlier, but simply beat everyone put in front of him..and Joe holds a victory over an ATG in Hopkins. Can't say the same for Carl...

Yes, Joe could have left him whenever he'd have wanted to, but again, he was content to fight whoever was put in front of him. If you look at his resume from Eubank-Lacy, the critiscism is justified.

Again, Joe was a better fighter, and statistically speaking he achieved more. But I could never envisage Carl repeatedly fighting the guys who Joe fought back in the late 90's/early 00's.

[robertzimmerman]

How is his resume better though?

People can say it but nobody can say why Or prove it.

Is he a 2 weight Ring champ... no.

Was he ever no.1no.1 in his division... no

Did he beat a prime undefeated version of Kessler... no

Did he lose to a shop worn version... yes

Has he got as many World Champs as JR. . No

Currently JC has 10 and CF only 6

Does he have 2 wins on his resume as good as a prime undefeated Kessler, and Hopkins a legend and ATG at LHW..no

Froch best win after Kessler Pascal lost to Hopkins years after the Calzaghe fight

If Froch oppobents are so great then how come he lost to a worse version of Kessler than Calzaghe beat ... they're only common Workd level opponent.

It seems like as Froch had a few tough back to back fights against high profile (because of the S 6) opponents everybody forgets about all the earlier World Champs Calzaghe fought pre Lacy of which there wrre 5, as if they don't count on his record.

The stats favour Joe, but again, Carl gets more respect.

When people say they think his resume is better, they're saying it (IMHO) because he had more exciting fights, and he gave it is all against the best out there. Fans like the toe to toe warrior mentality. Carl is seen as being more exciting and he's in the public eye much more than Joe was when he was fighting.

I have many friends who feel this way, who are just casuals.

Carl has left a much bigger impact on them.

But I agree with you, in that Joe was clearly better and he achieved more.

[SAJ10]

we can all do that to opponents though....

Pa scale - never been SMW, lost Hopkins some 4 years after Calzaghe.


Taylor - blown up MW, never done anything at SMW, lost something like 4 out of his last 7 fights in including that defeat to Froch before being sold by AA. Totally outboxed Froch till the last few rounds.

Credit to Froch for that, but he shouldn't have been outboxed against that version of Taylor.

Dire ell - green, many think beat Froch, since lost to Degale

AA - **** average including lose to Stiglitz and arguably a loss to Paul Smith (yet is another opponent Froch gets credit for due to his high profile because of the S6.

Johnson - came in late was a LHW, had to cut weight was 44 or something with something like 14 losses including to SHeika who Calzaghe beat, apparently this is another one of those really tough opponents that Froch faced compared to JC.

ButE - paper champion destroy by Froch. How you can question whether Joe would face him when he faced a far tougher man in Kessler, who withstood 24 rounds with Froch not 5.

Kessler - you only have to watch the Calzaghe fight and then the first Froch fight to see the deterioration. He's not up on his toes has become flat footed, his speed and reactions are clearly not what they were.

Groves - took Froch to school first 6 rounds of this fight, embarrassingly. The commentator even said... He's making a mug out of Carl Froch. He did this with no world level experience, youre making something out of Joe being in a close fight with an ATG, Joe never been beaten down & outclassed in any of his fights the way Froch has been.


I never said Joe's opponents were all that, what I said was their opponets were of a similar level With the exception of Joe's two better victories over anything Carls got.

These are the facts, Joe tried to make a fight with Hopkins years before, its common knowledge Jay Larkin the then showtime exec said terms were agreed then Hopkins doubled his demands.

I'm not saying Hopkins ducked him, I don't think he did but it wanSt all joe's fault the fights like this never happened earlier. It's also a shame that Ottke hid away in Germany protecting his belt for all those years.

Look, I respect Froch but It I st think he gets too much props for his record coz the guys were high profile due to the S 6. They were top level opponents but same level as the guys that people overlook completely on Calzaghe's

He got an opportunity to fight these guys back to back due to the S 6, but when you assess his resume against Joe's fully, in doesn't match up for all the reasons I've stated before.

Ward fought the same tournament but doesn't get half the props, Hopkins record for fighting guys is benter than anybodies for taking on top level oppo

[Korver]

Forch is INCORRECT saying that he beat more World Champions (WC).. Both Calzaghe and Froch beat the same number of WCs: 9.

Since Calzaghe's reign at 168 lbs was much longer, since he also was undisputed champion (held all 4 belts & Ring title) he was much better at 168 lbs than Froch. In addition Calzaghe also held Ring belt at 175 lbs.

Thus it is actually SILLY that Froch thinks he has a better record. But this is expected from Froch; because he is one of the most SELF-IMPORTANT, delusional boxers that I have ever seen.