On second viewing, I was more impressed with Calzaghe than I was initially...

Like a lot of other people on this site, I was quick to put down Calzaghe and his performance the first time I saw the fight, and I dismissed his win as little more than just outhustling an older man to a close win.

But when I watched the fight a second time (yes, that's right... I managed to sit through it a second time :: ), I saw things that were more subtle that Calzaghe did that he really didn't get credit for, especially from the commentators.

Hopkins isn't a fighter who can be beaten simply by sheer pressure and workrate. If that was true, he wouldn't have beaten Tarver or (especially) Winky.

The commentators (and most people in general) kept talking about how Calzaghe had been sucked into Hopkins' fight. While it may be true that that is the kind of fight Hopkins usually likes, I think Calzaghe was a lot more comfortable with the way the fight was going than people realized. He did a better job of making Hopkins miss, slipping and smothering his punches, than the commentators gave him credit for... and although he did indeed slap with a lot of his punches, he also got in more good, clean shots here and there than he was given credit for. He also did some good work on the inside that went unnoticed, especially the way he matched Hopkins foul-for-foul (ie: using his head, punching on the leg). In a way, he actually out-Hopkinsed Hopkins.

Also, when I watched the fight the first time, I thought the rounds were too close to score and I pretty much gave up scoring about halfway through. Watching it again, I still believe most of the rounds were close, but I believe Calzaghe had the edge in the majority of them, even if the edge was often slight. For that reason, when scoring the fight round by round, I would actually take the side of the people who scored for a wide margin for Calzaghe, along the lines of 8 rounds to 4, or even 9-3.

I think Calzaghe's performance is easy to underrate for the same reason many of Hopkins' performances in the past were underrated, such as his recent win over Winky, because the fights are often boring and some of his most effective/impressive work is subtle. Many people were quick to put down Hopkins for "looking bad" against Winky, who was past his prime and coming up in weight... but they overlooked the fact that Winky is another fighter who is nearly impossible to look good against, and that no fighter other than Hopkins has really been able to solve that style of his since he adopted it more than 10 years ago.

When evaluating Calzaghe's performance, a few things must be considered:
1) Regardless of his age, Hopkins is one of the best defensive fighters in the world today, right alongside Mayweather (and IMO, his defense has been even trickier in recent years than it was 10 years or so ago).
2) Hopkins had/has one of the fastest and best sneak right hands in boxing history.
3) Hopkins excells against southpaws, especially in recent fights.
4) Hopkins generally prefers fighters who come to him.
5) In general, Hopkins has a notoriously difficult and unique style that few (if any) other fighters in the world today have. Tarver was totally defenseless against it, and Winky's own "unsolvable" style couldn't overcome it either.

Given all that, I think you can't blame Calzaghe (or any fighter, for that matter) for struggling with him. Whether a guy is 43, 23, or 103, I believe if a fighter still has all the assets listed above (and is a highly regarded, P4P rated fighter on top of that), then he's a legitimately good opponent.

A lot of people have speculated that Calzaghe was the "bigger" man in this fight, seeing as he had spent his prime at 168 and Hopkins at 175. But Hopkins actually started his career at 175, and spent much of his early career at 168, and looked trim and fit there. Plus, he's already shown himself to be comfortable and settled at 175, as his performance against Tarver proved beyond a doubt.

As far as Calzaghe being a "slapper"... well, there's no question he struggled to land clean blows on Hopkins, but I think credit for that should go to Hopkins for being the defensive wizard that he is. Calzaghe did something very few fighters have ever done, which is to find a strategy to continually pile up points against Hopkins.

I think the pattern of the fight was also affected by Hopkins' late round bitch antics, which he used to buy time and disrupt Calzaghe's rhythm. They reminded me of the same way Judah blatantly fouled Mayweather in the late rounds to halt Mayweather's momentum and to keep himself from being stopped. I'm not saying Hopkins would've been stopped if he hadn't done his thing, but I think if Calzaghe was allowed to continue in his rhythm, he would've dished out more punishment and been more convincing and impressive in those late rounds than he was.

When the fight ended, people were quick to say that fighters like Pavlik, Roy Jones, and even Jermain Taylor would dispose of Calzaghe. Given that Calzaghe is past his prime by at least a couple of years (and perhaps more), it's hard to tell how much he has left at this point... but I think it would be a mistake to judge him too harshly off this one fight. I wouldn't be surprised to see Calzaghe do better against all of those guys listed above than he did against Hopkins. They all may be younger and perhaps hit harder than Hops... but at the same time, they're all more conventional fighters, which means Calzaghe may have an easier time hitting them, which could be exactly what he needs to look good again.

 

I've watched it 4 times now and each time I see more and more that JOe is a bum

 

Calzaghe fought the same boring

punch and hold strategy against robin reid. throw 3 punches then clinch. I watched 8 rounds of that borefest and had calzaghe up by 7-1. Whoever said reid won that fight is either a reid fanboy or blind.

 

It's indeed near impossible to look good against a dirty spoiler who is soley content to back up the entire fight, just to time you with one pot shot before clinching, round after round, it was pathetic stuff, and ofcourse you've got to be pulled in to "fight Hopkins fight", because someone needs to lead or there is no fucking fight at all.

Anyone claiming that Calzaghe was the "larger" man must be blind or a bitter Hopkins sympathiser,.. ,..How the fuck does that work?...Hopkins is taller, has longer limbs, and is visually thicker in appearance, despite him having 0% body fat, Hopkins is also greater in size than just about every supermiddleweight out there :eeeek: !, except for perhaps Librado Andrade.

 

Why would you watch that crap fest more than once?:shit:

 

are you serious?

I watch them all over and over and over

 

Spot on...I think some folks may miss the sublteties of that fight.

Plus...did anyone out there really, REALLY think this was going to look like Vazquez-Marquez or even Pacquiao-Marquez? :: ::

It constantly amazes me how people predict an ugly, awkward fight; know the styles of the two men going in and how they've fought in their last 4-5 fights.....but then criticize the fight for going exactly the way everyone thought it would as if it was a surprise. ::

You basically had two thinking fighters trying to outsmart and out-adjust each other.

Because it was a very tactical chess-match type of fight (with clinching and fouling to boot) it's easy to overlook the adjustments both men made over the course of the fight.

Hopkins' initial plan was built around catching southpaw Calzaghe coming in leading with his head and fully squared up, which is one of Joe's biggest faults. Hops executed that well, especially early...notably in the 1st and 6th rounds to beautiful effect.

Hops also used his feet to move laterally and not allow Calzaghe to get set to flurry...and when Joe came in, Hopkins gave him his left shoulder/head which cut off Calzaghe's straight angle of attack and smothered his shots. He would then clinch and punch/elbow/butt.

Joe responded first by angling his incoming a bit to get on Hopkins' right side, setting up Calzaghes' left hookercut to catch Hops bending over. So Joe began to use angles inside; and also deliberately tried to keep one arm free/back (the right) to be able to use it inside.

Hops then adjusted by leading with his right hand/head and forcing the smothering clinch before Joe could get off or lead.

Joe responded by beginning to take small steps back when Hopkins led to catch him coming in with his right hook or uppercut; he also feinted to draw Hopkins forward and then counter. Joe also began to box at distance, using feints, the jab and the very straight 1-2 to great effect.

Hops responded by incorporating a lead left hook which caught Joe often.

There are so many things that went down....and Calzaghe showed himself once again to be an adaptable thinking fighter who could also get rough if he needs to.

It's an interesting fight to watch. Pretty or aesthetically pleasing? No.

Hopkins was no doubt the bigger man. Watching him at LHWT at 42-43 years of age; you wonder how great he would have been at 168 or 175 had he come up earlier....and how the hell he got to 160 and even 156-7 for so long.

Peace.

 

Yes. I thought about watching it over as I had initially scored it 114-113 for Bhop but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

 

I've been saying this over and over again since the fight happened, and moreover - people seem so shocked that Calzaghe didn't look great, or spectacular against Nard :notallthere:

I'm very surprised at a lot of people here.

Even Roy didn't look great against Hopkins.

Hopkins is such a rough, tough, crafty, dirty, spoiling bastard that is literally impossible to look good against him, but people are somehow surprised that Calzaghe didn't.

He won and he won clearly, that's enough.

Good post Cuban and Donny.

 

That fight took place before christ was born. Tough to draw any kind of parallels.

 

This version of nard is better than that one.

As others have suggested, the reason nard has lasted so long at the top is because his style is all craft, not athletic ability.

And these days he is as crafty and experienced as ever, and he can STILL pull the trigger. As soon as he sees an opening for that right hand, bam, he can shoot it out, and it's fast too - still.

 

Let me translate some of these pro Joe comments:

Calzaghe looked like a bum, but he's our only hero.

USA>UK

 

The thing that amazes is me is the amount of discussion the Hopkins-Calzaghe fight has generated despite the fact that it went exactly as most experts predicted.

 

I watched it again, mainly to see if I was insane for scoring it for B-Hop.

I watched a lot of the exchanges in slow-mo to see what was actually landing.

I still scored it for Snaggle Tooth.

 

Yes you are insane for scoring it for Nard, Calzaghe won 9 rounds to 3.

And also - I gave Nard the first 3 rounds, at that point I really thought he was going to win, and I was rooting for him UNTIL he tried to quit and get Joe DQ'd.

But the thing is, the only round he MAY have won after that is round 10.

 

I don't score fights on aggression unless it's effective. I don't score fights for activity unless the punches are landing.

Calslappy landed less clean shots than Borenard and didn't win 7 rounds.

 

damn, nobody took the bait ::

 

Hopkins' didn't execute his plan very well, at least not the one his corner had in mind. His corner repeatedly told him to feint with the lead right hand and throw the left hook. He never did it well.

 

I agree. I also think Bernard looked extremely sloppy and off balance when he attempted the few uppercuts that Roach kept begging him to throw.

 

:nono: What you should be scoring the fight on is in favour of the aggressor, the man trying to make the fight. Not the backpeddler who is only content to counterpunch or time the odd shot and clinch/foul.

 

I hate Joe Calzage.. I hope we get to see him stretched

 

His corner and team in general was just too big. If I remember correctly in the 24/7 show he had 4 trainers (3 boxing, 1 cardio)! Who the hell needs 4 trainers!?

 

So I shouldn't have counted the knockdown in Round 1?

 

Nard landed 2 or 3 flush shots and that was it.

From round 4 onwards Joe landed MANY clean jabs and left crosses, and counter right hooks too.

Not flush, but clean enough.

 

Effective aggression is what I score on, not merely aggression.

It's not effective if your slaps aren't landing.

 

:crafty: How did you score Williams / Margarito out of interest? .. because it seemed to me that one guy was landing the harder more effective shots, the other was landing more, but they were just soft prods...-slap equivalents.

 

7-5 Williams. I thought it was a pretty close fight.

But Williams actually landed a decent amount (although at a low %), unlike Calslappy.

 

Bias! :eeeek: ,.. Really Erratic, I just dont get how anyone can watch that entire fight and believe Hopkins was the winner, those disgraceful rest breaks he rewarded himself were the icing on the cake.

But there's one positive, the hatred for Hopkins has taken my focus off Fraud for a good while.

 

dsimon writes:

Great analysis Cuban Hawk and Donny!! Either guy could have won depending on what you were scoring its that simple. I hate to side with Byrd but her score was as legitimate as the other judge.... the 116-111 was BS though.

I just think that now-a-days judges want more punches and you can't always judge how a punch is landing, thats the reality. The hand is quicker than the eye.

 

Hopkins fought shtty. Let's face it. Yeah, we have to give Joe some credit, but let's not forget Hopkins barely beat a Junior Middleweight in Wright who had a similar style and not as much power. Hopkins is just too old to get hit as much as he needs to in order to win. He traded with Joe maybe three times the whole fight. Once upon a time, Hopkins would've gone punch for punch with a guy like Joe, and beaten the shit outta him even if it meant taking some shots on the chrome.