calzaghes legacy

[boxerbob]

the reason fans keep going on about super joe is because....

there are fans who think he is a boxing legend

joe thinks he was a boxing legend aswell

legends fights legends and greats in their prime - joe hasnt done this

[overhand_right]

Sonny Liston went on to get beat by Leotis Martin

FIVE years after the first Ali fight, in his forties by this point.

Joe Frazier drew with Floyd Jumbo Cummings

A DECADE after their first fight & Joe coming off a five year retirement here.

George Foreman went on to lose to Jimmy Young

A razor-thin decision in Puerto Rican heat to a guy who many felt had beat Ali.

Absolutely no comparison here between these guys and Joe's suposedly 'great' victims

[doctorboxing]

Sonny Liston went on to get beat by Leotis Martin

FIVE years after the first Ali fight, in his forties by this point.

Joe Frazier drew with Floyd Jumbo Cummings

A DECADE after their first fight & Joe coming off a five year retirement here.

George Foreman went on to lose to Jimmy Young

A razor-thin decision in Puerto Rican heat to a guy who many felt had beat Ali.

Absolutely no comparison here between these guys and Joe's suposedly 'great' victims

Of course not and thats part of the reason I used these examples. Its never as straightforward as simply looking at a fighter and saying, oh he got beat by him therefore that makes boxer X's win a crap one.

Calzaghe was a great boxer who had a great career with many missed opportunities.

[boxerbob]

well said overhand right

calzaghe was nowhere near great

he still cannot punch properly ffs , he slaps , for a guy with all that experience , he never corrected this amatuer fault

[Captain Hook]

now put to rest

kessler - a decent champion , nothing more , destroyed by a guy having his first world title fight , when super joe beat him he was the greatest british champion ever

jones jnr - knocked out in 1 round before and after super joe gets knocked down and can only outpoint this fragile years past his prime ex champ

everone knows it , that why super joe ducked just about every challenge there was by defending his wbo strap for years

hopkins , jones , ottke , pavlik etc all in thier primes lol , nah we got sobat , pudwell , oap brewer etc

super joe in the super 6 - nah that means fighting guys in their prime

you have and never will be missed joe - total waste of talent

Pathetic thread.

[boxerbob]

tell me the facts where i am wrong captain hook

[overhand_right]

Sonny Liston went on to get beat by Leotis Martin

FIVE years after the first Ali fight, in his forties by this point.

Joe Frazier drew with Floyd Jumbo Cummings

A DECADE after their first fight & Joe coming off a five year retirement here.

George Foreman went on to lose to Jimmy Young

A razor-thin decision in Puerto Rican heat to a guy who many felt had beat Ali.

Absolutely no comparison here between these guys and Joe's suposedly 'great' victims

Of course not and thats part of the reason I used these examples. Its never as straightforward as simply looking at a fighter and saying, oh he got beat by him therefore that makes boxer X's win a crap one.

Calzaghe was a great boxer who had a great career with many missed opportunities.

'Great' is Roberto Duran moving to welter & beating Sugar Ray Leonard, or Ali outwitting Foreman in the Jungle - it's not beating Jeff Lacy, Mikkel Kessler and Roy Jones who also suffered ignominous defeat(s) by men nobody calls great before/soon after fighting Calzaghe.

It just fit the British sensationalist media agenda to make a British sportsman out to be something much more than he was.

[doctorboxing]

'Great' is Roberto Duran moving to welter & beating Sugar Ray Leonard, or Ali outwitting Foreman in the Jungle - it's not beating Jeff Lacy, Mikkel Kessler and Roy Jones who also suffered ignominous defeat(s) by men nobody calls great before/soon after fighting Calzaghe.

It just fit the British sensationalist media agenda to make a British sportsman out to be something much more than he was.

I wish Joe had fought big names and higher quality opposition as much as a Calzaghe hater but believe me, if I won a world title from Eubank, defeated mandatories for 10 years and unified a division before moving up and winning the Ring title at another weight all whilst remaining undefeated then I would call myself great!

[nobby_nobbins]

Calzaghe's hands were far too brittle to knock out Joe so he outwitted and outboxed him instead. He is the only boxer ever to have done this. And don't forget, by the time Calzaghe fought Jones he was well on the slide himself. Apart from the hands, his punch resistance was fading.

Of course Joe could have done more to make the big fights happen in his prime and I condemn him for failing to do so, but he still achieved a great deal. It's not just the Brits who call him great. I noticed the Showtime commentators called him that during the Ward-Kessler fight.

As irritating as it is, most boxers miss opportunities during their careers for various reasons - Calzaghe is not unique in this respect.

[MrBoxingUK2]

truth hurts

tell me 1 great fighter super joe fought and beat in his prime????

answer - nobody FACT

why are you calling him super joe?? if you think he's that shit..what a wanker

[ALI]

Say he comes back and beats Dawson and Ademek

He wont

Because really a fighters fights after his loss to anyone has no bearing on that fight, you have to remember who they were before the fight, hindsight is 50/50.

Hindsight is 50/50, what the fcuk does that mean?

Hindsight is the ability to re-evalute something once it has actually happened. Lacy was a hot prospect and, at worst, expected to seriously test Calzaghe, but in HINDSIGHT he was clearly overated, anyone with half a brain should now recognise that. Pull yourself together man!

[whiskey]

What will they say when Froch knocks out Kessler in his hometown ?

[mickey1975]

What will they say when Froch knocks out Kessler in his hometown ?

If he does,after all the stick the Froch fans have given Calzahe over his win against Lacy,it would be fair to criticise a win over Kessler coming off a bad loss to Ward.

[crusader]

Say he comes back and beats Dawson and Ademek

He wont

Because really a fighters fights after his loss to anyone has no bearing on that fight, you have to remember who they were before the fight, hindsight is 50/50.

Hindsight is 50/50, what the fcuk does that mean?

Hindsight is the ability to re-evalute something once it has actually happened. Lacy was a hot prospect and, at worst, expected to seriously test Calzaghe, but in HINDSIGHT he was clearly overated, anyone with half a brain should now recognise that. Pull yourself together man!

I meant to write 20/20, don't know why it came out 50/50. Do you need me to explain what that means? I can certainly recognise he was over matched, but that doesn't take away from Calzaghe's win, he beat the man who was the 'baddest man in the division' the 'mike tyson of 168' regardless of how he has been since it was and is still a good win. Who knows what lacy would've done if he hadn't have fought calzaghe, no-one can tell me he's the same fighter. But to now say he was poop, he was never that good, he was overrated, is nonsense, it may be true, but most of the people saying it are the people who were tipping him for the win, hence 'hindsight is 20/20' which I wrote spectacularly wrong in the first place.

How can it be nonsense if it may be true? If Lacy came back after the loss to Calzaghe and scored some impressive wins, then I could get the point, but if a fighter doesn't beat one top fighter in his entire career I think its safe to say they were never anything special.

Dawson and Adamek, whom were previously mentioned have already scored much more impressive wins than Lacy ever has, and thus they have proven to be legitimate top notch fighters, not Lacy-esque hype jobs. Tell me who Lacy ever beat that makes him a great name on a record.

People though Ricardo Williams was going to be the next American boxing legend, turned out he never came close. Is it hindsight to say he wasn't all that good? As mentioned in an above post, hindsight is a great tool to reevaluate a situation as circumstances change, it should not be regarded as an argumentative fallacy.

[ALI]

People though Ricardo Williams was going to be the next American boxing legend, turned out he never came close. Is it hindsight to say he wasn't all that good? As mentioned in an above post, hindsight is a great tool to reevaluate a situation as circumstances change, it should not be regarded as an argumentative fallacy.

Exactly

Horse racing gives a good perspective on this. Often, a well bred (or sometimes not so) young horse puts in a few very impressive wins against mediocre oposition, then gets flung in at grade level and is immeadiately made the hot favourite by the bookies, pundits and fans, its fancied to win by all, only it gets beaten out of the park, never to get near this level again.

What can hindsight tell you in that scenario?

[Captain Hook]

tell me the facts where i am wrong captain hook

For starters you have Pavlik on your list, who was humiliated by Hopkins after Calzaghe had beaten Hopkins.

Kessler was favourite for the super six tournament until Ward beat him, and now he's no more than a bum?

Lacy, Reid, Eubank Mitchell, Woodhall, Brewer, even a faded Jones were all top names and former world champs.

Lacy was supposed to batter JC.

Many missed opportunities but whingeing about Ottke and co is hardly fair.

He was a great fighter who should have gone over to America sooner and fought Jones and co but nonetheless, they were hardly beating down his door to fight in the UK, especially Ottke!

Reid easily beat Ottke, and he had several other decisions go his way. How many fights did Calzaghe lose, how many of them could be disputed. Perhaps Reid and Hopkins at a push and I had him winning both of them by two rounds.

These anti-Calzaghe threads are pathetic. The guy has retired undefeated, in any other country he'd be a hero.

Sadly, in this country we'd rather a mug who boxes with his face and goes down fighting, yet losing.

Calzaghe got stuck in, was quick, had a great chin, good power early on (before the hands) and had great stamina. He had many flaws too, but doesn't deserve the disrespect he gets on this forum. It's tiresome.

PS Do you honestly think he would come out of retirement to fight someone like Dawson, who is not even famous in his own living room? Do me a favour.

[gobbles]

well done to kessler as he is beating a decent champion , again froch is nothing special and not great.

but at least froch will go away from home to fight the best

God this is dull. According to your logic, Froch "going away and fighting the best" is rubbish, because Taylor was flattened by Abraham, so has therefore been exposed as useless.

You are rewriting history for your own personal vendetta.

You can only judge a fight on what it is at the time. In only rare cases, like Azumah Nelson after losing to Salvador Sanchez, do boxers go on to achieve great things after a bad defeat. In many more cases, a boxer is destroyed mentally.

[overhand_right]

Lacy was expected to batter Joe because Joe was so lightly regarded and had become notrious for avoiding risky fights - don't we all remember 'Sick Note'??

Of course Lacy's subsequent pitiful showings combined with Omar Sheika giving him a hard time prior to the JC fight illustrates how ordinary the weight lifter was all along, and how much hype played a role his image.

[forcefraser]

Bika looks like a decent win. Hard fight that one.

Fair enough, he never fought "greats" but how many greats were around to fight and did they want to fight him?

Like it or not, boxing is about making as much money as you can without getting hurt. Calzaghe has done this.

The only fight that pissed me off was the shambles against Jones Jr. It was like two mates in an exhibition fight. Terrible stuff.

I think Calzaghe showed that he had/has great talent and he hit Hopkins (a defensive master) more than anyone else has ever done.

He beat Kessler in his prime and most of the people on here (pre Ward) thought Kessler was the dogs knackers.

Who should he have fought in their prime but didn`t?

[gobbles]

And what's more, if people are so glad Joe's gone, why do they start bloody threads on him?

[Captain Hook]

Here here...

[Autobarn]

joe had a very successful career, albeit one that is infuriating to the casual fan because of the disappointing choices of opponent made, even at times when he was a hot fighter.

yes, it is a better time to "calzaghe bash" now, with kessler and jones doing so poorly in subsequent big fights. i don't feel like "calzaghe bashing", i do however think he could have made more of it. all that showing off in the jones fight looks a little silly now, perhaps?

[thepocketrocket]

Ok, just for my sake, was Joe ever scared of flying or was he LYING?? 8)

Just so we don't get all revisionist, when he fought Reid, Woodhall, Eubank and Brewer they were all seen as yesterdays men, lets not look at what these guys did in their prime(though even then they were never regarded as monsters), lets view it as it was at the time, Calzaghe bashing up aging champions. That's why Joe was becoming a laughing stock, throw in Tocker Pudding and friends and we paint the piucture AS IT WAS AT THE TIME.

Then he beats Lacy(though he was trying to get out of it) and more impressivley Kessler(close but just about deserved)

That's the sad thing about Joe, he had so much more than he ended up achieveing, he could have been a legend, but instead he expected Hopscotch and Roy to come to Wales? What? Come on, you don't ask then to do that unless you want to get out of fighting them!

Then his farewell tour where I, annd many others feel Hopkins beat himand kind of implies what may have happened to Joe if Hopkins was a bit younger.

Then Roy, oh Roy.He cashes out in a pathetic spectacle, he is a 'legend killer', words fail me. On the flipside Hopkins goes and beats Pavlik and gets all the plaudits.

Joe, offered so much but will go down as some European, decent champ, but I just feel that there was more to offer

[ArtOfWar]

he was 43 ffs

calzaghe should have fought him 5-8 years before that but never

remember in those days , he didnt like flying lol

hopkins and jones would have kayoed calzaghe if they fough all them years ago -FACT

he was 40 beating DLH
he was older than 40 beating tarver
he was 43 beating winky
he was 44 when he beat pavlik
and at 45 he will beat ornealias tonight

when it comes to hopkins his style has never changed so age doesnt matter to him

It does, because his punch output has dropped dramactically. He wasn't in his prime for any of the fights you mentioned, his just adapted his style over time. Watch him taking apart Glen Johnson or any of his fights from that time, he was a much more active fighter then.

Calzaghe would not have beaten a prime Hopkins and i'm not sure he beat the old Hopkins. It was a fight that could have gone either way.

Calzaghe's title reign was a massive disappointmet and I don't see how anyone can defend the majority of his title defenses.

[overhand_right]

Personally I'm glad sicknotes gone - Hopkins was a close fight & I always thought B-Hop nicked it. Roy Jones was a dead body and Lacy & Kessler are truly ordinary.

I think this article sums up his CV nicely:

Knock Out Blow for Calzaghes Legacy?
By Glenn Userian - Whether or not Joe Calzaghe has felt any physical pain over the last month he must certainly be smarting, as unusually within the world of boxing his resume has been severely discredited and has turned into a who’s who of boxers who were either in complete decline or who never produced at the top level. Without even stepping into the ring the 46-0 fighter who was a world champion and title holder for little over 10 years at Super Middle Weight has watched his achievements be undermined significantly, and he only has himself to blame..

The shame of the whole issue is that Calzaghe was a worthy world champion, an extremely effective and well conditioned fighter. He put together some very good performances. But when you look at his record now there is not even one defining fight against a top level boxer in his prime.

Talk of being considered an all time great alongside the likes of Leonard and Duran could not be further from peoples’ minds when perusing their respective list of achievements. The irony of the whole situation is that in protecting his unbeaten record Calzaghe has left so many question marks over his career that it was being debated by boxing fans how good he actually was before he even retired.

Calzaghe has always pointed to four fights that prove he was world class and the best fighter at his weight at his time; Hopkins, Roy Jones Junior, Lacy and Kessler.

Hopkins was beaten by a debatable split decision and had Calzaghe down hard in the first round. Let’s not forget that Hopkins was 43 years old at the time a full 15 years past his title bout with Roy JJ in one of the most physically demanding sports there is. There’s no doubting that Hopkins is still a good fighter after his schooling of the previously heralded Kelly Pavlik, but what would a 15 years younger Hopkins have done to Calzaghe? And why was the fight not made earlier?

Jeff Lacy was a fighter who never lived up to the hype that usually goes with unbeaten American prospects, unbeaten when he faced Calzaghe his career at the prime age of 32 has not got anywhere near the top level.

In the last few weeks Kessler who was unbeaten when he faced Calzaghe was comprehensively outpointed by American Pro novice Andre Ward who was in his 21st pro fight. As good as Ward promises to be Kessler looked one dimensional and out of ideas. He certainly has work to do to prove himself a worthy world level scalp on Calzaghes record and only time will tell.

Finally we have Roy Jones Junior who this evening in Australia was stopped after only 1:58 of his title bout against the Australian IBO cruiserweight belt holder Danny Green after being floored heavily with a right hand. There is no way that this should detract from what Roy JJ has achieved in his career, but what it does show is that he is no where near the fighter he was in 1993 when he beat Hopkins for the vacant IBF Middleweight title. The slide probably began with his back to back defeats to Tarver (twice) interspersed with a defeat to Johnson in 2004. Since then Roy JJ has looked a shadow of his former self but still took Calzaghe the distance in 2008.

Calzaghes protection of his unbeaten record has cost him dearly, for all the adulation he receives in the UK, history will judge him on the quality of opposition he faced. Of that there was not a great deal in the first place, but recently the few fighters that Joe claimed were world class have been exposed as either not good enough to be considered top contenders or simply well past their best. Boxing is a risky business and you can only be judged to be as good as the risks you have taken and triumphed from. Unfortunately for Joe and his fans he seems to have taken little risk and what he is left with now is a resume that may read unbeaten but with not even one fight against a worthy top level opponent in their prime.