I agree it doesn't make Watson's resume superior, and I didn't claim it did. It makes his ambition superior. I can't really agree about the WBO, not when you look at champs like Ricky Burns, or if you look at some of the WBO heavyweight claimants of recent years (Klitschkos aside).Rover wrote:But Watson didn't beat McCallum. I don't think a KO loss makes one's resume superior to another fighter--who, BTW, beat him twice. And Eubank fought both Benn and Watson; their being fellow Englishmen doesn't lessen their quality. It'd have been no different had they been from the U.S. McCallum and McClellan came to England to fight Watson and Benn; what if they, too, had been English? One's nationality has nothing to do with his quality as a fighter.SamWise72 wrote:I agree that none of them fought Toney or Jones, and Benn didn't fight McCallum either. I think the key points of difference for me were Benn fighting McClellan, and Watson fighting McCallum, and both having the ambition to go after one of the major titles, even if that meant meeting one of the best. I don't think I'll ever feel Eubank's resume quite stacks up against that, though he proved himself the better fighter than either. For that reason, I'd be more impressed with a prime Benn than a prime Eubank on Calzaghe's resume.
As for the "major title" argument, the WBO now has become one of the "big four," and Eubank, along with fighters a few years later like MAB, Hamed and Calzaghe made it so. There was a time just a few years earlier when the IBF (the title Jones and Toney held at 168) was just like the WBO--approximately five years before Eubank won his WBO title, in fact.
I simply feel Eubank had a rather domestic career; his best wins are over other UK fighters, of whom only Benn distinguished himself with wins against any of the very best. Benn was prepared to go to the States to face Barkley, and to Italy to face Galvano, McLellan and McCallum were willing to come here to fight Benn, Watson and Graham. Eubank and Calzaghe were neither willing to travel to get the big fights, nor were they able to tempt the best fighters from abroad to come here. I agree that in Watson and particularly Benn, Eubank beat world level operators, but then his ambition ran out.
I suppose one way I might look at it is this; if there were only one world title, Benn, Watson and Graham might all have fought for it, but Eubank wouldn't, unless it was in his fight against Benn. Benn McClellan and Watson and Graham vs McCallum were fights against someone who had a legitimate claim to be #1 in the division. What does Eubank have to offer that compares?
It's subjective, I grant you. It's proven that Eubank was the best in the ring from Benn, Watson and Eubank, but of them all, he's the one whose further ambition least impresses me, and that's why he doesn't make my list of the very best that Calzaghe beat.
