See how full of shit Calzaghe is? He's delusional.

That's a good question. I think when you look at some of the great fighters of the nineties and 21st century, they separated themselves by testing themselves. Or at least establishing a resume built on a series of solid opponents. 20 defenses and, still, Calzaghe's resume is spotty at best.

It's ironic that a guy like Floyd Mayweather Jr. - and I'm not happy with his quality of opp lately - gets as much hate as he does. His dossier was excellent at 130 & 135, far better than a Calzaghe, for instance. I also remember that he was calling out Oscar as far back as in 2002, and then worked his way up to actually fighting him (seemed almost ridiculous when he was calling him out at 135, right?).

How about a Roy Jones Jr., who is known as a fighter that took few risks? The same Jones who moved up to 168 to take on James Toney. Or leaped to to a limitless weight class to take on a top ten heavy.

We could go on - Oscar, etc.

It's not the worst thing to say Joe is not in that category. He has proven to be a very good fighter and a good champ. But I don't believe he ever dared to be great. To date, his best victory came over Jeff Lacy, a pug I never thought much of. Can you name any other elite fighter whose biggest win was that...small?

Calzaghe could've moved to 175 if he wanted to. I also believe he could have come to the US if he really tried. Sh*t, Ricky Hatton and Prince Naseem Hamed did, why couldn't he? Especially since he's been name-dropping the fighters he should've fought for the past ten years.

If anyone deserves credit, it's Mikkel Kessler for making this fight happen. Joe C. should take notes. Kessler is young, undefeated and believes he's the best fighter in and around his division. And he's willing to back it up by going into his opponent's backyard and fighting him. Calzaghe never left his comfort zone; never took that big a risk. Actually, he doesn't need to take notes. It's too late for him to do what Mikkel is doing now and I don't see him doing it in the future. His track record speaks for itself.

 

anyone who supports roy jones can't say shit about anyone competition or lack of taking risks.

imdazed seems like a big time calzaghe hater in addition to also being a lacy hater.

bottom line, once calzaghe beats kessler, he'll be regarded as the best 168 pounder of all time. either that means something or not, he'll still be ahead of roy jones in terms his legacy at 168 if he already isnt.

 

Hiow about you try refuting my statement instead of making weak arguments like "hater?" Get serious...

 

it's not a weak argument. it's a fact. you sir, are a hater. ::

 

Up until Tito, was hopkins resumé any better than Calzaghe's?

He was being heralded as an all time great middleweight, and rightfully so, through sheer dominance at 160, even before the Tito fight.

His resume was spotty, not exactly a list of high profile names like OScar's resume for example, but he was a long time champ, dominant, and clearly a great, very hard to beat fighter.

And his career best win was over a guy who's best weight was at 147, who follows tricky opponents around like a robot.

You have to give Calzgaghe some credit, he doesn't have the resume of all resumes, but it's not ALL his fault, he's stayed at 168 and beaten most of the best fighters there, Kessler is the next step in reinforcing his dominance at 168. If he wins, he'll go down as the best of all time at 168, no doubt about it.

IMDAZED - who else do you feel is a great, or all time great fighter in the last 15/20 years?

And have you actually seen Kessler fight? As stated before, I don't like kessler, and think some people are REALLY high on him, thinking he'll destroy calzaghe etc, but the guy can fight, no doubt about it. HIs resume, skill and talent is leagues above Lacy.

I am picking Calzaghe by decision, close but clear.

 

Calzaghe´s legacy bla bla, greatest super-middle bla bla, shitty resume or not bla bla. The only relevant question is whether Kessler shoudl be considered the greatest super-middleweight of all-time after he KO´d Calzaghe. :stir:

 

Up until Tito, nobody considered Hopkins a great fighter - right or wrong. If you can point to all those pieces waxing poetic about Hopkins BEFORE Tito, please do so. In fact, he was a pretty big underdog that night. But I think he proved that night how great he was. Trinidad a natural welter? Sure. But I'd say he was a damn good junior middle as well, wouldn't you say? In fact, his work there catapulted him to the top of the p4p lists. He was far more accomplished than say, a Jeff Lacy.

And Hopkins has done other things like moving up two divisions and defeating THE light heavyweight champ - I think that speaks for itself.

I'm not sure what everyone is missing here. Let's face it, Calzaghe had opportunites to make fights. He didn't bother. Sh*t, if Lacy hadn't flown halfway around the world, that fight wouldn't have happened either. But Lacy did what he had to do to make it happen. Calzaghe never did that. Never took a risk, never moved out of 168 when it was obvious an Ottke fight would never take place and there were plenty of good fighters seven pounds north--a division, by the way, he swore he would move up to just about every six months.

As it stands today, his best victory is over Jeff Lacy. Forgive me if I don't think that's the stuff of legends. How much stock do you put in Ottke? Surely, he's not that far from Calzaghe? Look at their records.

Yes, I've seen Kessler fight and, in fact, I may go to Denmark for this one (do not laugh). I also know damn well who Vitaly Tsypko was/is - I just found it amusing guys were insinuating Lacy deserves some kind of props for barely getting by him.

I don't think I need to name the all-time greats of the past 15 years or so. I made my point. Sh*t, Oscar doesn't have one standout win either (Vargas?) but it's hard to argue with someone who stepped in the ring and hung tough with Whitaker, Quartey, Trinidad, sh*t he even stepped up and "fought" Hopkins!

Calzaghe refuses to step out his comfort zone. And in the end, that will hurt his legacy. Kessler will be his best win. What happens if Kessler does nothing else for the rest of his career? How high will you rank him?

 

i had hopkins #2 at p4p before he beat tito. if he had retired after the tito fight, wouldnt you have said the samething about him as you would say about calzaghe?

 

That what? His best win was over Felix Trinidad? Compared to...Jeff Lacy?

 

i think you're a little too harsh on lacy. the guy was an olympian w/ heavy hands and he's only had 1 loss.

he looked like doo doo in his last fight, but i heard from joey gilbert (who trains w/ him) that his shoulder has healed nicely and people will surprised at how good he'll look when he comes back.

tito at 160 was still powerful, but let's face it, his lone noteworthy win was over william joppy who went in the first round w/ both of his hands down.

 

Tito>Lacy. Let's not go there.

Professionally, Lacy was the epitome of overrated. Heavy-handed? Yes. Not AS heavy-handed as the hype would've led us to believe. How about his other attributes? He struggled with Vanderpool and Williams and, quite frankly, didn't impress against either guy. Just don't see how I'm being so harsh on him. I'm not. I'm merely pointing out that the man you consider to be great holds Lacy as his highest credential. And that's not saying much.

 

vanderpool is a hard guy to look good against. just ask hopkins.

regardless, lacy knocked him out. he also KOed robin reid who's never been stopped (and coming off a win over an unbeaten magee).

you were in the minority if you thought lacy had no chance against calzaghe, but that would mean that majority of the people including the media are a bunch of morons for picking lacy to win that fight.

 

The fact that he was ABSURDLY a 3 - 1 underdog against Tito was more down to him being allegedly old and ripe for the picking, and tito being obscenely overrated at that point.

Around then, many people had him top 3 P4P, or at least top 5, and he had amongst the most title defenses ever of his middleweight crown, and was being called a great fighter. People may not have liked him, but even then yes, he was being called a great middleweight?

You didn't think so at the time? Show me some articles that said Hopkins was not a great middleweight.

His underdog status against Tito was not him being considered not very good, or not a great middleweight, simply being old, and tito being seen as a fighting god at the time.

And you're going to Denmark on Holiday, at the same time this fight is happening in Wales? Why would you do that?

 

Damn - i'm surely not objective on this one but Roy's competition SHITS on Calzaghes.

When has Calzaghe beaten a fighter like Hopkins or Toney or moved up a division or faught a heavyweight beltholder... i mean seriosly if someone's a hater then it's you comparing both competitions...

 

roy jones is a great great fighter, and one of the best i've ever seen. i hold both fighters in high regards, but roy's on another level compared to calzaghe.

that's not my point. roy, as great as he was doesnt have the best resume. yea, he beat toney and ruiz, but who else? a young hopkins?

what's more impressive, roy beating a green hopkins or joe calzaghe DOMINATING a 31 year old Eubank who subsequently went on to beat carl thompson at crusier (only to get robbed)?

 

People underplay that win badly, that's a great win.

Eubank can fight, I thought he'd stomp calzaghe.

 

and prior to that fight, eubank was never thoroughly dominated.

i think a lot of the american critics remain critical because those so called euro bums that calzaghe feasted on are absolute no namers here.

but what they dont realiaze is that like a lot of the fringe contenders we see on ESPN here, those german, danish, english bums are also showcased and televised on their tv networks.

so yea, mario veit might suck, but has IMDAZED actually seen this guy fight to come to that conclusion?

 

Exactly, those are guys that get the same coverage as most of the fringe contenders on the world stage in America, only in Europe.

IMDAZED simply doesn't like Calzaghe. HIs resume is at least as good as Hops prior to Tito, and Hopkins would have gone down as an all time great middleweight if he had retired before Tito.

 

oh come on green Hopkins my ass... He is older than Roy and gave him a competitive fight unlike Toney... so he was about as green as Eubank was shot... and even if he was green, what does this make Jeff Lacy, who CLEARLY wasn't ready to face someone like that??

Toney, Hops, Ruiz - is definitely better than Eubank, Lacy and so is Roy's light heavy string vs. ok competition compared to Calzaghes supermiddle, imo.

If u don't even think so why would u say Roy is on another level?? :nixweiss:


With Hopkins vs. Calzaghe it's closer although i would lean slightly towards Hops, too...

 

you are dumb. hopkins was older, but who had more experience? is that why Hopkins went through hell (getting dropped hard twice in the process)against that ecuadorian dude when he fought for the title?

 

okay u won... :: - i actually didn't think you would go on that pisspoor level since u seemed like one of the better guys here...

Ok and Lacy was younger AND had less experience...

Maybe that equals Roy's Hopkins win and Toney equals Eubank - then Roy still has the edge... what's so hard to get here since you're the smart one of us?

 

lacy was a champion and was ranked top 3 in the division by almost everyone.

many picked him to knock calzaghe's head off. how does experience matter when calzaghe supposedly hasn't fought anyone decent?

sorry for calling you dumb, that was unnecessary.

 

and by the way, roy's resume is better than calzaghe, but let's not forget, roy's been shitted on throughout years for his competition or lack there of. i was referring to roy's resume because anyone who admires his competition should at least tolerate calzaghe's competition.

 

yeah shouldn't even have pussied about it considering what level the name calling here usually reaches when the going gets tough...

thing is a bad champion who got his belt from vanderpool is not necessarily as good as a good guy who doesn't have a belt at the time. I'm not sure if Hops was ranked top 3 at the time but in retrospect there is no duobt in my mind that he was more capable at that stage of his career as lacy was when he fought Calzaghe.

But before we going circles here - EVEN IF u think Lacy and Eubank equal Toney/Hopkins which is IMO a stretch and i bet u will alomst have this exclusively among most boxing observers - even then Roy has still the Edge with the heavyweight thing and a better 2nd rate resume.

We can settle it here u don't have to join my point of view as i surely won't join yours and we can stop trying to get Hopkins and Lacy into the right light here...

still friends...

 

ok this post lets me ask myself why we got into an argument in the first place ::


Well i like both Roy got my really into boxing but as a fan of the sport i like Calzaghe, too i tolerate his resume and a lot of that "no risk taking" probably has to do with his promoter whereas in Roy's case u can blame a lot on Roy. Still in the end Roy took a LITTLE more risks and i wish i had seen Calzaghe do it earlier, too.

That said i'm really satisfied with the kessler matchup in my eyes that is all Clazaghe had to do to get all my credit - so i'm really in peace with him as a boxer! :bears:

 

IMDAZED's argument in a nutshell: Calzaghe hasn't been to America, and hasn't fought enough Americans therefore he's shit


The end

 

I don't remember too many people who had Hops top 3 before the middleweight tourney. Truth be told, I don't remember anybody AT ALL. Shane, Tito, Roy - top 3 right there back then. I'm going to see if I can find some old mags.

And, I meant Wales, sorry. Completely forgot because the guy who keeps asking me to come is from Denmark.

Really, does it matter what Hops did BEFORE Tito? Hops has a much stellar resume than Calzaghe TODAY. And in December too, if that helps. Simply put, you can't compare the guys Calzaghe fought to the guys greats in his era fought. You can't. Look at Jones, Hops, Barrera, Oscar, Floyd, etc. Compare it to Joe's. Maybe I'm bugging.

 

That's stupid. He doesn't have to come here and he doesn't have to fight any American fighters. He didn't have to fight Ottke either. He can sit comfortably on the record he has now and be considered a great.

 

No, I haven't. And never will. Can you guess why?

And comparing Jones' opp and Calzaghe's is dumb. For the record, if Jones hadn't taken any risks, he wouldn't be that far from Joe C. Let's not act as if Roy was some sort of media darling while Joe C. was being treated as someone who fought Euro bums. Roy got plenty of criticism but he also established his credentials by taking risks.

 

so now Roy is some sort a risk taker? ::