THE MORNING AFTER...
Posted: 20 Apr 2008, 06:39
Well, while the history books will show a Calzaghe win, I'm still deeply disappointed at what I saw.
I really thought I'd see an improved Joe given the extra poundage but he didn't seem as quick, his punches looked amateurish on a lot of occasions and his pre-fight claims of stopping Hopkins looked silly as there was no sign of any 'pop' on his shots.
I'm still a big fan, which is probably why my sense of disappointment is all the more enhanced.
One thing I feel increasingly strongly about is that Joe didn't prepare properly for this fight - we all knew exactly how Hopkins would fight, yet Joe did the same old sparring routine with the likes of Nathan Cleverley that was clearly woefully inadequate in terms of getting him ready for Hopkins' style of fighting. It would have been the perfect time to bring in some Stateside fighters to mimic what he would be up against - that way he wouldn't have had to throw away the first half of the fight while he worked out how to cope.
I really thought I'd see an improved Joe given the extra poundage but he didn't seem as quick, his punches looked amateurish on a lot of occasions and his pre-fight claims of stopping Hopkins looked silly as there was no sign of any 'pop' on his shots.
I'm still a big fan, which is probably why my sense of disappointment is all the more enhanced.
One thing I feel increasingly strongly about is that Joe didn't prepare properly for this fight - we all knew exactly how Hopkins would fight, yet Joe did the same old sparring routine with the likes of Nathan Cleverley that was clearly woefully inadequate in terms of getting him ready for Hopkins' style of fighting. It would have been the perfect time to bring in some Stateside fighters to mimic what he would be up against - that way he wouldn't have had to throw away the first half of the fight while he worked out how to cope.