Who’s your favourite of these fighters ?

He stopped all bar a small handful of fighters before he fought Joe.

MTF

 

Calzaghe's resume is definitely thin, for a man who had twenty-odd defences. His best wins are probably Eubanks (who you don't rate at all), Reid (yes it was very close and could easily have gone either way), Lacy, Kessler (probably his best win - only Ward did a better number of Kessler than Joe did and Calzaghe did it with punches, not headbutts) and Hopkins.

That's five very good wins over good/great fighters. There are a couple of other solid wins (Woodhall, Starrie, Mitchell, Brewer) but not much else. I doubt anyone would argue that his resume is thin. If you rate fighters solely/mostly on resume, Calzaghe doesn't have too much to rate.

MTF

 

I rate Eubank. He's overrated, but he was a good fighter, even if a bit on the downside, when JC beat him.

 

Calzaghe's resume is a little thin, but he'd beaten enough good fighters to have justified his undefeated record. Let's not forget that he beat a prime Kessler fair and square. He also beat a still very capable Hopkins. He beat Eubank prior to that.

 

I saw pretty much all of them because he was on ESPN practically every time... guy was hardly "demolishing" anyone ... stopping, sure but George Foreman he wasn't

He was a lousy pro and beating him isn't a big deal

 

'A lousy pro'.

MTF

 

He was... he was utter crap ... what's his best victory?

 

I take Thurman from the list.

 

Ive always thought Reid had a much better shout at claiming he beat Calzaghe than Hopkins did. I thought Joe beat Hopkins fairly comfortably in an absolute pig of a fight. I remember scoring Calzaghe-Reid in favour of Reid when it happened, but it was razor-thin. In fact in recent interviews Hopkins has always praised Joe's skills and suggested he lost.

 

I personally think the notion that JC won comfortably against Bhop is utter nonsense. Fightbeat is pretty much the only place where I see this claim (probably correlated with the fact that there is a lot of brits, proportionally, here). Bhop landed by far the cleaner and more effective blows. I've posted numerous times the ringside media scorecards, and nothing suggest it wasn't a contentious if not controversial fight.

 

It was a close fight

 

You know Calzaghe fans are a bit desperate when they have to prop up Lacy (one of, if not the most over hyped fighter in the past decades) as a meaningful win. Guy was super overrated because he blew away past their prime cans and was found to be severely lacking at the world class level.

 

Hopkins won the first three rounds clear as day, plus a knockdown, so he began with a four point lead, then Calzaghe gauged the distance and started to walk Hopkins into flurries. Hopkins was still landing good, clean counters here and there but he was getting hit the whole time in between, he wasn't winning rounds.

 

and then there is the whole part of the latter portion of the bout where hopkins was looking to find ways out once he knew he was losing

 

certainly not "the alien" grant. he looked like dog shit vs that dude

 

This is true... that was the last straw for me with Hopkins... I rooted against him from that point onward in every fight

 

Canelo, easily

 

the thing is, in the round Bhop complained the most, he also clearly won it. Shows to me that people judged that fight with their heart and not their mind

 

Exactly my thoughts word for word

 

Another oft forgotten fact round these parts. Hopkins spent the last three rounds trying to get Calzaghe DQ'd for non-existent low blows and fouls.

MTF

 

Yeah it was atrocious. As much as Bernard is portrayed as this old school hard man he sure liked to take shortcuts when things weren't going his way.

 

Forgotten!!! . Everybody always talk about this. But it has absolutely no bearing on whether JC won the fight or not.

But It's a favorite tactics of JC fans. To use this as a ''proof'' that he won the fight (even thought BHOP also did it in some fights he was winning easily)

 

I got the overall impression that Calzone won the fight but I never scored it. If I went back and did a round by round and had it for Hopkins would I be surprised? No.

Will I bother watching that shit again? No.

 

The fight was awful... the most grotesque, absurd "positive" fighter versus one of the most cynically negative cunts of all time

 

Sounds like a Fightbeat debate.

 

Tank
Thurman
Calzaghe
Canelo

Canelo would have been 2nd but after this whole debacle, and him blaming GGG and claiming GGG is the one who doesn't want the fight, he's last

I agree. I don't take Compubox as anything more than a basic tool and something subject to human error. Hopkins landed the cleaner shots throughout.

He also kept trying to put on an Oscar-winning performance with his flopping over little taps that strayed low. The thing that makes that even worse is that Hopkins is a notoriously dirty fighter who uses almost every foul in the book. Then went someone taps him low, he acts like the guy just landed a Golota-Bowe type low blow.

 

Yup, JC didn't win comfortably. It was a competitive fight

 

I don't know anyone who thinks Calzaghe beat Hopkins clearly, except for maybe MWS? I might be misremembering. I had Calzaghe by two points, but it was close. It was also one of the most awful pieces of shit fights I have ever watched and will never watch it again.

Whether Calzaghe won close or not doesn't really matter. He won. Not many beat Hopkins. Joe did. It was an excellent win.

MTF

 

I had Calzaghe winning by a point, 7-5 in rounds but loses an extra point because of the KD. I agree that it was an excellent win, and one that Calzaghe should get more credit for even though the fight itself was less than stellar. Hopkins was still formidable, evidenced in that his fights surrounding that one were routs of Tarver and Pavlik.

 

numbskulls like jesus the mongrel rewarding hopkins floundering around for the final quarter of he fight