latest JC/Hop articles

[Greg Nicholas]

STEVE COLLINS has echoed Joe Calzaghe's view that age will be Bernard Hopkins' downfall in their prestigious 'Ring' championship light-heavyweight affair in Las Vegas tomorrow night.

'Celtic Warrior' Collins, the Welsh prodigy's predecessor, said: "43 years is a very old man in boxing."

At 36, Calzaghe, who dominated the super-middleweight division for 10 years running, is seven years younger.

"Hopkins is making a mistake: Joe is too fit, too hungry," Collins said.

"Hopkins is going to lose. Everything about the fight tells me that it's a win for Joe.

"I'm the same age as Bernard Hopkins and I couldn't do it again no matter how much determination or how much belief I have.

"But Joe needs that one big name fight and Hopkins provides him with that, so Joe's not complaining.

"Even if I didn't start my own career in America and become U.S. champion over there; I have Mike McCallum and Nigel Benn on my record.

"Joe doesn't have established fighters the Americans respect on his record, largely because they haven't been around.

"But come Sunday morning he will have one - finally!"

But he said Hopkins would have his excuses ready if he lost to Calzaghe, even though Collins thought Calzaghe would have beaten Hopkins even if the pair had met 10 years ago when Hopkins was "in his prime".

"He'll turn around and say: 'I stayed around too long, I'm 43 years old, I would've beaten this guy in my prime, I took it because I thought I had one last fight left in me,' and that's so frustrating."

Collins' path didn't quite cross with Calzaghe's back in the 1990s, and the Dubliner puts that down to the lack of star appeal the Newbridge man possessed - or failed to possess - back then.

"Listen, Joe was in his early twenties or something at the time. I didn't know who he was," he said.

"It seemed too early for him to be fighting for the world title anyway. Like it had come to soon.

"I thought of him as another of those young guns saying they're 'this and that', and felt he wasn't ready. But obviously he showed he was ready.

"The only opponent for me at the time was Roy Jones. We'd eliminated everyone else but unfortunately it never happened.

"Joe wasn't on the radar screen at the time."

His advice to Calzaghe at the Thomas & Mack Centre tomorrow night would be to "do what Joe does best".

"Just overwhelm him - pressure, punches and make those 43-year-old legs suffer."

And the battle over age has been taking place in Las Vegas as well with Hopkins playing down the age gap.

"Joe is not a spring chicken, he's 36-years-old," said Hopkins.

"In boxing numbers, 43 is old and 36 has got to be knocking on the senior citizen door. I am already in the senior citizen hall if it means anything."

(BBC Sport Wales..)


LAS VEGAS - It is not strictly a British phenomenon to develop an affection for athletes or teams that fail, at least those that do so in the most crucial of situations. Here in America, we have those legendarily lovable losers, the Chicago Cubs, who haven't won a World Series since 1908 or even appeared in one since 1945. The stands at Wrigley Field often are packed regardless of that unfortunate history.
But the Brits . . . it's difficult to understand how a people who were prepared, in the words of Winston Churchill, to fight the Nazis "on the beaches, on the landing grounds, in the fields, in the streets and in the hills" could acquiese so meekly and graciously whenever their sportsmen are bested.

Long-reigning super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe (44-0, 32 KOs), the Welsh southpaw who will attempt to wrest The Ring magazine light-heavyweight title from North Philadelphia's Bernard "The Executioner" Hopkins (48-4-1, 32 KOs) tomorrow night at the Thomas & Mack Center, is more than a little familiar with his countrymen's peculiar willingness to accept and even revere those who try hard but lose.

In what he still maintains is the most difficult scrap of his 15-year professional career, Calzaghe won the vacant WBO 168-pound title by outpointing another British subject, Chris Eubank, over 12 rounds on Oct. 11, 1997, in Sheffield, England.

The not-altogether-surprising reaction by British fight fans, who had previously respected but never fully embraced the eccentric Eubank, was to shower adulation upon the defeated fighter, perhaps in recognition that his long run finally was over. After two more losses, Eubank retired in 1998 with a 45-5-2 record that included 23 victories inside the distance.

Calzaghe, the undefeated and underappreciated winner, was left to wonder if he needed to lose at some point to gain the widespread support fight fans in the United Kingdom generally reserved for the successful but flawed likes of, say, former heavyweight heroes Frank Bruno and Henry Cooper.

"They love a loser in this country," Calzaghe said some weeks ago while training in Newbridge, Wales. "They hated Eubank when he was champion. He goes out and loses and they love him. Work it out. I don't know. It's ridiculous."

All of which makes Calzaghe at least a figurative underdog against Hopkins, even if the oddsmakers see the challenger as a 2-to-1 favorite. And with 8,000 or so free-spending visitors from across the pond making the trip to the Strip, the atmosphere in the arena should be decidedly pro-Calzaghe.

But Calzaghe isn't prepared to allow his supporters to recross the Atlantic sadder, wiser and more inebriated, as was the case with all those Ricky Hatton crazies last December, when Las Vegas was transformed into a desert outpost of the British empire for Hatton's doomed bid to unseat WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr.

"Seeing Ricky getting thousands of fans on the other side of the world was incredible and gave me a real buzz," said Calzaghe, whose confrontation with Hopkins - who pronounced he would "never lose to a white boy" - added a dash of spice to the Mayweather-Hatton festivities.

Calzaghe, whose 21 defenses of his super middleweight title are a division record and one more than Hopkins' division-record 20 defenses at middleweight, apparently is determined to lift the United Kingdom's equivalent of the Curse of the Bambino and keep on winning until there are no more victories to be won.

Maybe there is space in the collective British heart for a fighter who isn't satisfied to merely try hard.

"I always thought that I would retire undefeated and years ago people may have thought it was something of a pipe dream," Calzaghe said. "But now I am so close. It is like being on the final lap of doing something remarkable. Rocky Marciano did it, but very few people have."

Calzaghe, 36, has said he plans to retire within the next couple of years, which could mean that the Hall of Fame-bound Hopkins represents his last major hurdle on the way to perfection. And the fact that the bout is taking place on U.S. soil only serves to ratchet up its importance.

"Brits, in order to prove themselves, always have to go over to America," Hatton said after he left his comfort zone in England for three fights in America, including the showdown with Mayweather.

For their part, the Calzaghes - Joe's trainer is his Sardinian-born father, Enzo - represent the working class from which many of the United Kingdom's favorite athletes sprang. The self-taught Enzo never boxed himself, but he passed on his love of the sport to his son, who learned some of his moves by watching the "Rocky" films, using a rolled-up carpet as a heavy bag and an orange peel as his first mouthpiece.

There must be some benefit to being a carpet-banger. Joe Calzaghe is flush with the sort of confidence that comes with a 44-bout unbeaten streak. He is neither intimidated nor impressed by Hopkins' reputation as a destroyer of opponents' dreams.

"I see nothing in Bernard Hopkins that can beat me," Calzaghe said. "I would have beaten him at his peak, and I will beat him now.

"He knows what it's like to lose. He's lost four times. I've never lost. I don't contemplate losing."

(Philly Daily News..)

[STP]

Collins is a pendalfart(sp?), at a dinner he did a while back he was barking on about how he was the only fighter in history to have 'never lost a war' or something. Citing McCallum was running away from him in the last round and wouldn't rematch him, so he lost the battle but won the war, and how Roy Jones was simply scared of him and wouldn't fight him, so he didn't have the battle but won the war.

[DavidPayne]

Good fighter Collins. Big heart, strong fella and tireless.

But he wasn't in Eubank, Benn, McCallum, Graham, Watson, Jones, Nunn, Toney, Calzaghe's class.

He just got to them at the right time.

Graham would have stood Collins on his head.

[Greg Nicholas]

wasnt in GMan(McLellan) class either.. or even Reggie Johnson or Sambu Kalambays ;)

[DavidPayne]

I'd have liked to see Steve Collins v Henry Wharton, I think that would have been very telling.

[STP]

or even Reggie Johnson

He actually beat Johnson I felt, son, though it was a messy performance.

[STP]

I'd have liked to see Steve Collins v Henry Wharton, I think that would have been very telling.

Collins would have to box him, or be prepared to take a lot of heavy-handed left hooks to the ribs and kidneys, and lose.

[Al Savani]

Steve was a 16-fight kid against the legendary Body Snatcher and went nearly 50.50 with him after 5 rounds of anxiety,from round 6 on. Steve is a great fighter,fought top class guys in theirbackyards in questionable decs and repeated doses on both Eubank & Benn just for confirmation,sending both into retirement. 2-weight world champion,retired unbeaten world champion. Achieved a hellof a lot for his supposed limited abilitty. Great fighter,imo.

[DavidPayne]

He was a very good fighter. No question.

But timing favoured him, catching Benn and EUbank late and was hard on him, putting him in with MM and RJ early.

I maintain, Graham would have stood him on his head.

[STP]

Bomber would have absolutely made a fool of Collins!

Talk about a mismatch. That's ridiculous.