Calzaghes best win?

[Counter-puncher]

btw AFAIK the first person to mention the '1008 punches landed' tatistic on Calzaghe, was, noted boxing punchstat statistician, Joe Calzaghe.....

Calzaghe pretty much mentioned it in every single interview after the Lacy fight - "I can't be beaten, I throw over 1000 punches a fight, etc" -as if it was the norm for him.

he did it vs Brewer too, to be fair

[SNG]

I'll dig out the video and have a look at the numbers. I don't think he landed anything close to a 1000 shots though haha, threw maybe, but not land.

[Counter-puncher]

I don't think he landed anything close to a 1000 shots though haha, threw maybe, but not land.

it was always my assumption they had schewed the two figures

[jamesmcdonnell]

I don't think he landed anything close to a 1000 shots though haha, threw maybe, but not land.

it was always my assumption they had schewed the two figures

953 thrown, 400 odd landed.

Still, 35-40 shots a round landed on average is pretty good going.

Definitely had great stamina Calzaghe.

[Boxerbeetle]

Back on topic, another reason the Lacy performance was so impressive was because Calzaghe had looked so god-awful in his previous few fights. He really did look like he was there for the taking, which clearly swayed the bookies. I know he was going through a bad divorce during that period so I guess that had a negative impact on him through some of those fights, but I still remember how surprised and delighted I was to see the very best version of Calzaghe that night. And it was on ITV too, which meant there was a real buzz about it the next day which you just never get from Sky bills.

[Counter-puncher]

I don't think he landed anything close to a 1000 shots though haha, threw maybe, but not land.

it was always my assumption they had schewed the two figures

953 thrown, 400 odd landed.

Still, 35-40 shots a round landed on average is pretty good going.

Definitely had great stamina Calzaghe.

[Counter-puncher]

Back on topic, another reason the Lacy performance was so impressive was because Calzaghe had looked so god-awful in his previous few fights. He really did look like he was there for the taking, which clearly swayed the bookies. I know he was going through a bad divorce during that period so I guess that had a negative impact on him through some of those fights, but I still remember how surprised and delighted I was to see the very best version of Calzaghe that night. And it was on ITV too, which meant there was a real buzz about it the next day which you just never get from Sky bills.

i remember smoking several 'nervous fags' in the immediate buildup and first couple of rounds, then settled down to a celebratory spliff by round 4 when it was clear he was going to batter him

[Noxy]

Kessler for me. Was a boxing masterclass by Calzaghe in the second half of the fight.

Like others, whilst the Hopkins win was a great win, it was a scrappy fight that could have gone either way. I think Calzaghe would have lost to Hopkins in his absolute prime.

I agree, I think Hopkins would have had too much - however, Hopkins had his opportunity after beating Trinidad, he had a contract in front of him, with terms he had asked for, and he then turned round and demanded double the money - I have to assume, that he didn't fancy fighting Calzaghe all that much at the time - and therefore turned the opportunity down - strange on his behalf, considering he then took on Calzaghe several years later when he was well past his prime and had much less chance to win. Of the shots actually landed in that awful fight, by far the best ones were by Hopkins, he was so negative however, that Calzaghe just got the nod through sheer aggression, even though it was pretty much totally ineffective. I do think Hopkins was extremely respectful of Calzaghe, which shows how good Joe was.

I think that was just gamesmanship by BHop. Joe wasn't as big a name in those days, at least not outside the UK, so he would have been chasing the likes of Hopkins and Bernard tried to milk it, which is understandable. By the time they met it was different as Joe was seen as the main man and was therefore obviously much more interesting for the likes of BHop.

[Mimmy]

I heard Calzaghe had a £5 accumulater on 9 football teams, paid £754 thats a decent win.

[magwitch]

His best win was against Eubank - although I'd label him as world class at that point, rather than "prospect". Eubank doesn't yield easily (understatement). It was also Calzaghe's first twelve round fight, I believe, so he was finding things out for the first time that night.

I'd say Jeff Lacy was his next hardest. That could have gone badly wrong. Although I favoured Joe resolutely from the word go, it was 50-50 in this country (or that was my impression). If he'd seen any footage of Joe whatsoever, then I suspect Lacy won't have been confident going in.....and Joe was so unconfident that he didn't want it and tried to rearrange it. It was only Enzo that pushed it through - and how do we know that wasn't the ramblings of a madman? Hindsight's a wonderful thing! (Seriously now, I think Enzo was very confident that his son had Lacy's measure - even if Joe wasn't.

I incidentally also liked Joe's fight against Woodhall and I feel Richie's got a little bit of a raw deal being left out of this company.

[Crease]

For me it's the Kessler win.

Going in to the fight, Kessler has proven himself to be the most dangerous Super Middleweight out there, with his wreckage of Markus Beyer (a good, distinguished World Champion) - it would have been relatively easy for Joe to skip the Kessler fight, but taking it on showed that he had a lot of balls. And the victory showed that Calzaghe was the genuine number one Super Middleweight in the world.

[Counter-puncher]

Markus Beyer (a good, distinguished World Champion) .

[Crease]

Markus Beyer (a good, distinguished World Champion) .

Beyer had been WBC Champion for well over 3 and a half years... Lost his title (controversially), but won it straight back again... And clocked up eight successful defenses of his World Title.

Certainly spells out an established Champion for me. Not to mention that he won the belt from the previous Champion. Nothing artificial about his record.

[Counter-puncher]

good, you've already demoted him from 'distinguished' to 'established', I'm making some progress here.

now tell me who his best win was out of those 8 defences, and we'll end up with him in his proper place in the scheme of things.

[Cyclops]

Based on how the survey is worded, then it's Hopkins isn't it? When they fought, Hopkins was considered past it at 43 and Joe got stick for fighting an old faded version (even though a guy I knew thought Joe was crazy for fighting Hopkins saying he'd get killed). The fight was rubbish and Joe looked awful scraping a win (was it a MD or SD? I can't remember. I had it on DVD too). BUT! Hopkins went on to smash Pavlik next fight, who was supposed to be Joe's next 'Kessler', the young lion. He then did what he did, beating most of the young lads in the division and taking on The Best guys bravely, Kovalev and prime Dawson...

So the survey says taking into account what Hopkins achieved after. If that's the case he is a better win than Kessler. Kessler best win is probably the win over Froch. Not that I care about the HOF, but while i expect Froch will probably make it, I am not sure Kessler will. Maybe. He was a good solid honest world title holder who lost when he fought 'the champ', much like Froch, but does not have the resume of Froch.

At the time, like the Lacy fight, it was hugely impressive that Joe took him on and won. But as time goes by, it looks better to have gone up in weight, fought the champ there with no warm up fights to "grow into the weight" (people seem to forget that he did that these days, where there is constant talk about fighters being careful moving up weight classes. How often do you see a guy coming up in weight to fight 'the man' without fornicating catch weights and stuff? And I don't care that Bernard was a MW once go look at the weigh in. Joe was not a big LHW) and won, beating a lock HOF who carried on achieving great things until he was almost 50?

Performance wise, Lacy all day. It was beautiful the way he fought in that fight. As soon as someone mentions one sided beat down in a supposedly even fight, in the UK at least, we all think of that fight. But the survey says win, so it's Hopkins, eh?

[Syntax Error]

I don't think he landed anything close to a 1000 shots though haha, threw maybe, but not land.

it was always my assumption they had schewed the two figures

953 thrown, 400 odd landed.

Still, 35-40 shots a round landed on average is pretty good going.

Definitely had great stamina Calzaghe.

Too true.

Calzaghe had phenomenal stamina.

I struggle to think of anyone in recent times who had better stamina than him.

[danamba7]

Too true.

Calzaghe had phenomenal stamina.

I struggle to think of anyone in recent times who had better stamina than him.

Froch was up there although didn't throw as much volume.

[keithmoonhangover]

Why isn't Tocker Pudwill one of the options?

Amazingly Tocker actually launched a comeback and scored a win this year. And he beat creepy contender fighter and 'Number 1 Daddy' Anthony Bonsante.

He is currently rated number 476 in the world; which technically means he's rated higher than Calzaghe now.

Amazing how the tables have turned!

Best post I've seen in ages.

[craig_minter]

Went to both Kessler and Hopkins fight and I felt a LOT happier leaving the Kessler fight so i'll go with that one.

I think he just adapted a lot better

[gb]

I'll always remember the Lacy fight for Dan Birmingham's bravery in the Lacy corner. Only Nazim Richardson can rival him for butchery skills in recent years.