what was joe calzaghes greatest win....

[robertzimmerman]

Undefeated Prime Kessler is a great win by anyones standards. Definitely his best win.

That said, it's easy to discredit the Lacy fight now but when that fight was signed, most people including most on here thought Lacy was a killer and would wreck Calzaghe and Calzaghe basically ruined him. I'll still say we should judge fights when the bell rings rather than hindsight and if that's the case, it's a good win.

Beating Hopkins in 2008 even in a close fight is still a good win by anyones standards too. Hopkins went on to beat the likes of Pascal and Pavlik after that fight.

That's about it for his good wins really. He has a few pretty decent wins scattered about his resume though such as Bika and past prime but tough Eubank. It's a shame the rest of his resume is pretty weak because he proved he could beat very good fighters when he fought them.

Also, Calzaghe was about 35+ when he fought the likes of Kessler. We probably never really saw the best of Calzaghe, he spent his prime beating the likes of Tocker Pudwill.

Quite odd really, retiring 46-0 and two weight world champ and still arguably underachieved. Could have been considered great but never really dared or had the desire to be great.

Great post.

[starjammer]

Probably Daggum

[daggum]

kessler- the guy that inspired the term stiff euro bum.

hopkins-was a clear loss. only one person was actually landing clean punches in that fight and it wasnt calzaghe. why did the judges say he won?

lacy-just look at his resume pre calzaghe...nothing there.

eubank-over the hill had lost years earlier to steve collins and years before that to guys like shommer but was gifted those fights. he didnt have a relevant win in years and years.

besides that........

[daggum]

Probably Daggum

i am mger mtchikian. that was an early stoppage damn it!!!

[redmish]

ah, 3 posts in and the thread turns into a race issue.i guess thats longer than expected.

Agreed. Best to ignore posts of this ignorance. An unbeaten two weight world champion is not and cannot be mediocre.

[!! Shawn]

I loved the Eubank win which put him on the map, but for me, the Kessler win was his best. Jones and Hopkins were past it but Kessler was prime and unbeaten when Joe fought him. Loved the fight, the event and both of their performances. That was a great night for boxing.

Eh... considering what Hopkins did AFTER losing to Calzaghe, I don't think its fair to write it off as "Hopkins was past it" especially considering his next fight was an absolute masterclass performance against Pavlik. Followed up 2 years later with what should have been 2 wins over Jean Pascal, starting a 4 year run of having titles at light heavyweight.

Also, Calzaghe was no spring Chicken either at age 36 with a style that lent itself much less toward Longevity than Hopkins did.

With that Said, Kessler was probably his most important win.

There is lots of hate and misconceptions about Calzaghe though.

Also he somehow has this reputation as a feather fisted slapper, yet somehow he ended his career with a 70% KO ratio.

He was an unconventional southpaw with fast hands, an incredibly high workrate, and an ability to improvise and do whatever was needed to win.

[daggum]

Eh... considering what Hopkins did AFTER losing to Calzaghe, I don't think its fair to write it off as "Hopkins was past it" especially considering his next fight was an absolute masterclass performance against Pavlik. Followed up 2 years later with what should have been 2 wins over Jean Pascal, starting a 4 year run of having titles at light heavyweight.

Also, Calzaghe was no spring Chicken either at age 36 with a style that lent itself much less toward Longevity than Hopkins did.

With that Said, Kessler was probably his most important win.

There is lots of hate and misconceptions about Calzaghe though.

Also he somehow has this reputation as a feather fisted slapper, yet somehow he ended his career with a 70% KO ratio.

He was an unconventional southpaw with fast hands, an incredibly high workrate, and an ability to improvise and do whatever was needed to win.

calzaghe didnt win that fight though. he was hopelessly lost and hopkins landed all the clean shots. he simply could not hit him clean and kept running face first into counters.

yes he was unconventional, he didnt even throw legal punches most of the time. hitting with the inside of the gloves is illegal look at the rules. its what allowed him to generate his "hand speed" since he was waving his arms side to side and not forward and back in a legal motion. his straight legal punches were quite slow.

[UNBIASED BOXING]

Calzaghe was a great talent. Not sure why he's receiving so much hate.

Never will forget when he dropped Eubank. That was a monster of a punch.

[AddiX]

Kessler was easily his best win, and it was an absolute performance by Joe.

Hopkins he beat basically by being more active. Same with Roy. Those wins hold very little water, he wasn't impressive in either of those fights and waited until both were old.

Joe was a heck of a boxer, but he is a huge underachiever IMO. He should fought Americans earlier in his career, he ducked out of fights with glenn Johnson twice with "injuries".

Joe made sure to stay away from a lot of fighters in their prime. But you can't take Kessler away from him, he shined in that fight, too bad he didn't try to do it more often.

[GhostofDempsey]

Beating Hopkins was his best win. Especially in light of Hopkkns' racist attitudes prior.