Which Super Middleweight fight will be more important historically?

Calzaghe/Kessler or Jones/Toney?

Discuss.

 

Calzaghe just because he's been at the top of the division for ten long years and Jones nor Toney managed to do so, and Kessler nor anybody else ever will. Joe will go down in the record books as the divisions dominant champion just because he stayed at the top for so long.

 

Jones - Toney

both proven A level fighters...ridiculously one sided fight, less slapping

 

Historically, Calzaghe-Kessler.

In terms of career making fights, Jones-Toney.

Roy and James were both considered P4P top fighters with James having the higher profile of the two.

With Calzaghe-Kessler, you have a guy at the end of his career taking on his biggest challenge after tons of meaningless defenses.

In terms of having an undisputed champion, Calzaghe-Kessler is historically significant seeing that Jones never fought (because they've admitted to not wanting to fight him) the other champions in the division and unified the titles.

"However"

A undisputed champion at 168 at this point is as meaningless as being undisputed at crusierweight.

Jake and I talked about this prior to the fight and we both agREED that a Kessler win would be better for the division and sport seeing that we both felt as though Kessler was closer to Hatton in the sense that he wasn't afraid to travel to build his fan base and take on the best fighters. Say what you will about Calzaghe's career but he simply hasn't shown the willingness to do that.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, that means he's bought himself another year or two of Manfredo type fights before he decides to ride off into the sunset. I'll go out on a limb and guess that he'll look to break 50-0 then call it quits.

 

One of them came into the fight needing injections just to take a piss.

Be real.

Maybe Ali-Berbick was more important than Tyson-Holmes:dunno: :dunno:

 

Roy went onto beat Ruiz.
James went onto beat Ruiz.
Both men won the WBA Heavy Title.

Okay, James got caught and Roy didn't.

Roy made a little bit of history, and then resumed getting KTFO by 175lbrs.

Toney proved he was a far better heavyweight than Roy.

Thus, by my reckoning, Toney-Roy proved nothing, other than that James couldn't make 168 anymore. Hell, he couldn't make 200.

 

I won't turn this into a Jones vs Calzaghe thread because it's not about them specifically it's about the significance of the fight.

Your post is incredibly silly considering you're referencing things which happened ten years later but that's what happens when you don't have a point. :dunno:

 

Roy had no intention of doing shit at 168, he was always on his way to 175. As for Toney, he wasn't medically at 168 anymore.

Kessler and Calzaghe were two dogs on a street that only has one lampost. They had to fight over it. And may have to do so again.

Jones and Toney were just passing thru.......what they did at 168 that night meant about as much to 168 as JC Chavez fights did at 147. Nothing.

 

Wow...

This post makes me wonder if you started following the sport this year. Another incredibly off-base and near-sided post.

It's difficult to have a productive conversation when the other side doesn't have a clue as to what transpired an when.

Roy came in at 171 for some of his light heavy fights...

No one at 168 wanted to fight him so he moved up.

 

1997.

All I know is that Joe and Kessler have been at 168 for a combined period of 20 years {Joe debuted at 167...technically} and that they had almost 30 defences of their respective titles behind them.

How many years and defences did Toney and Jones have between them at 168??

How many belts did they unify?? Both Calzaghe and Kessler unified before unifying again against each other.

How many times did Jones and Toney unify?

Joe had that big fight with Lacy too....y'all musta 4got.

Toney WAS Jones big fight at 168.

One big fight. Come on.

 

! And 171 ain't as close to 168 as 167 is, the same way Chris "Middlweight" Byrd never actually had a pro fight at 160.:nono:

 

Ortho...

I suggest you re-REED my first post. Obviously, you missed the point the first time around.

 

NOPE!!!

Both Toney and Jones went on to have a decent career after that fight.

Both Kessler and Joe Cal will go onto to great things after theirs.

Kess is young enough and hungry enough.

Calzaghe is aware he is gettting close to cementing a decent legacy.

Sure, Toney looked fucked after the Jones fight, but career wise he panned out just fine, as I am sure Kessler will.

Historically:dunno: ........, it ain't even close.

 

I can't believe it took me this long to catch your M.O.

You're a Calzaghe nutrider.

Jones is a greater fighter than Calzaghe. There's simply no debate about that.

I realize now that I wasted my time trying to give you any kind of perspective.

 

I think its unfair to state that supermiddleweight unification is as meaningless as cruiser unification at this point in time. Never before has there been as much depth at supermiddleweight relative to other divisions as there has been in the last few years. You have/had a mixture of tough guys like Berrio, Lacy, Green, Andrade, Bika talented athletes like Mundine, Brahmer, Froch, Bute, crafty older guys like Beyer, Grant, Larsen, strong up and coming guys like Inkin, Pascal, plus a host of fringe contenders like Green, Stieglitz, Manfredo etc. The trouble is that few of these guys have much US exposure.

In fact I would say that SMW unification is a lot more meaningful now than Light heavy unification would have been (had it happened) during the late nineties, early 2000s.

 

Great quesion (should be a poll)

I would have to say Calzaghe-Kessler for the simple fact that both men had 168lb titles going into it and it was a unification of the division.

However in Jones Toney..BOTH men had a higher profile going into that fight (both top p4pders) than either Joe or Mikkel had and that's what made that one so significant.

But because the latter was only for Toney's IBF title, I have to pick the former...

 

Was Roy Jones really a top P4Per going into the Toney matchup? :dunno:

 

It's way to early to tell when talking about the current crop of guys for a couple reasons.

1). Calzaghe has no intentions on fighting any of them.

2). When you look at the light heavies since the late 90's and current, you'll find a list of guys who are or were champions and all are guys that Jones beat when all were younger.

In my mind, that's how you solidify how dominant you are in a division when you basically beat every challenger. Those guys became champions because they couldn't beat Jones (with the exception of Johnson & Tarver) whereas this group of guys coming up will never get the chance to fight the "guy" at 168.

No matter what happens, there won't be a passing of the torch.

With that said...of the guys you've mentioned....I've seen Mundine, Pascal & Bute and none of those guys are anything special. Especially Pascal. I've been on the "Allan Green is a bum" bandwagon for quite some time. In fact, I think I'm the founding member. ::

 

We, between them, Kessler and Calzaghe have actually tackled a number of those guys, hence the enhanced importance of this unification. As for the passing of the torch, it sometimes happens, the current HW division faced the same predicament post-lewis. Jones, and I'm sure you will dispute this, never really had the torch as Michalczewski always had some kind of claim, so the story was not so clear cut as you suggest.

I have no doubt that Kessler will pick up some belts, Mundine (who Kessler already beat) has some form of the WBA belt...I think this compares favorably with Woods and Gonzalez who picked up the belts post-Jones.

I am not arguing that Calzaghe is better than Jones, I do think you are greatly underestimating SMW in that last few years.

Mundine is pretty good, Green I still hold some hope for.

 

I hear what you're saying, don't particularly agree with everything, but your points are well taken.

Michalczewski is a special case seeing that he, like Benn and Eubank, had no desire to fight Jones.

 

I don't think RJJ was considered a top PxPer going into this fight.

As for which fight will be more important historically....

That's Calzaghe-Kessler; and pretty clearly to boot.

Peace.

 

Are you sure about that?

I seem to remember that RJJ was certainly a top 10 P4P going into that fight based upon a combination of his Olympic reputation, unbeaten record and good 160lb run up to that point...

ARE YOU SURE???????:warning:

 

Why?

 

Nah, he had fought for a vacant title if I remember right against a tough undefeated guy, it wasn't impressive, and his only opponents at MW of note were Tate and an old Malinga, he looked impressive against them but it wasn't a P4P thing at that point...

edit: I forgot Hopkins was not undefeated

 

Yeah, Jones was easily a P4P entrant at that time. Whether or not he deserved to be is perhaps up for debate, in the sense that ANYTHING is up for debate. But if we're to put even a little bit of stock into where major publications had him ranked, all had him in their top 10, quite a few in their Top 5.

In fact, the pattern I noticed at the time is that anyone who had Roy in their Top 3 (behind Toney and Whitaker) prior to the Toney fight, had Roy leapfrogging Whitaker after the Toney fight, whereas those who had Roy in the bottom 1/2 of the Top 10 inserted him at #2 behind Whitaker afterward.

Either way, he was most certainly a P4P entrant at the time.

 

Yep. Good post...especially the part about Toney/Jones/Whitaker. That is exactly the way I recall it happening.

 

So Benn says he didn't want to fight him and now it's everyone? (And to think that Benn wouldn't have fought Roy is crazy, despite what he has said. McClellan was a far more intimidating fighter than Roy.)

This is just bullshit.

Roy fought a lot of good fighters, but he avoided the many challenges, using the 'wah wah I got robbed in Korea so I can't travel to Europe' excuse. And this wasn't just at 168, it carried into 175.

 

So...Jones stop at 168 to take a shit and HAD ONE BIG FIGHT....Joe Calzaghe has been there what? 10 years? and he has what? 2 big fights..Lacy and Kessler? neither one at Toney skill level...>?

 

Kessler would have beat the living shit out of Toney at 168.

For reference, look at how well Toney did against Johnson, Tiberi, Jones, McCallum, Griffin, Thadzi.

Oh yeah, Toney looked really impressive against Barkley.

And Calz's Eubank fight was very big for very big fans at the time. A far, far more impressive win than the aforementioned Toney/Barkley fight, although admittedly with 1/10th the USA attention thanks to 800 lb gorilla, HBO.

 

Exactly....I seem to recall that also...