Who would win if Martinez steps up to 168lbs to face champion Calzaghe? Styles wise, potentially a very good fight iyo?
Right now you'd have to favor Calz although the style matchup is interesting. Have to see a bit more of Martinez to properly gauge his chances.
In all seriousness, I'd probably pick Calzaghe to maul & slap out a close decision with his fitness & volume.
Hut, you are a good and intelligent man, but your hatred of Calzaghe blinds beyond belief any sensible assessment of the man's capabilities. You really think that Martinez would be a better win than Eubanks or Hopkins? Anyway, Calzaghe by clear UD. Good style matchup this, but Serg is really a 154lb-er and Joe is too big and a bit too adaptable IMHO. MTF
Better fighter than a 43 y/o Hopkins? Debatable. It'd be a more impressive win though since Hopkins by that stage was a guy who couldn't handle the stylistic & physical advantages Calzaghe brought the the table. Namely a guy who could fight at a consistently very high pace and volume. So it's not an isolated question of 'who's better', since Hopkins had a specific age-related vulnerability that Calzaghe was ideally placed to explot.
Fuck Calzaghe. The way his career was managed shouldn't be rewarded with a single MM win, ever. He should be remembered as a bum and waste of skin. Martinez KO 5. The punch ruptures his pituatary gland and he never has an erection again, dies fat and lonely, barely getting 3 sentences in a local Welsh obituary page.
Calzaghe by UD. Stylistically, a great match-up imo. I think the amount of punches Calzaghe would throw and would land would trouble Martinez consistently. Martinez is a tricky operator and has pretty fast hands plus power, but Calzaghe's chin would hold up if Martinez landed, but Martinez' power at 168 is untested. Could very well imagine a stoppage in favor of Joe too.
Realistically i think Calzaghe gets a late stoppage in a very good fight. Martinez would inevitably outbox Calzaghe early and there's a good chance he puts him down early from a counter right hook. After 6 it's probably about even. Martinez is about as good a counter puncher as Hopkins or Jones were by the time he fought them, the difference being Martinez can also match Joe for footspeed and has the stamina to maintain his advantage in boxing skill for longer. But Martinez would get drawn into a fight as it went on, especially as he tired and Calzaghe started to catch up with him. The disparity in their natural punch out put is too big a swell to dam for long, too & as Joe starts getting to him and letting his hands go more and more - the more of a fight it becomes - the more Calzaghe's physicality & volume takes over and Martinez wilts. By the final quarter it would be pretty dominant and Calzaghe would probably force a stoppage before the end. If they're the same natural size, things may well be different.
The Scottish must HATE the Welsh, that's all I'm sayin' Otherwise I can make no sense of Hut's unreasonable position on Calzaghe.
I'll explain it in 3 concise points A) Match making. The reluctance to face the best, preferring to molly coddle his smelly little '0', and settle for a reasonably lucrative local celebrity. He breaks out of that orbit for 2 whole fights against Lacy & Kessler then thinks that stunning body of work warrants a lucrative cash out on the name of faded greats, of the type he would never fight in their prime. B) His style. He slaps, he punches indiscriminately, relying on fitness, volume and toughness to overwhelm guys. And he was really good at it. I just fucking hate looking at it, and I hate the misconception that he was a 'boxer'. He won rounds with shear pity pat volume. It was an essentially modern amateurish style and I hate modern amateur boxing. C) He was an obnoxious, insecure prick.
I care neither about rugby or Scottish national teams. :mj: And along with every non-Welsh person on earth my attitude towards the Welsh is one of screaming indifference.
Calzaghe obviously has a huge inherent advantage. This is like saying if Marquez moved up to fight Mosely.
Do you guys agree that if the shot that KO'd Williams landed on Calzaghe's chin, the same result would occur, even with Calzaghe being the bigger man?
Calzaghe for sure. He'd be too quick and too busy. Martinez would be competitive and he'd land alot of shots but not enough to do anything. Zags via UD.