Calzaghe ducked the best?

[mrodub]

Can you guys give me your opions and help settle an argument
I am debating with someone who believes that calzaghe did not go to the us in his prime thus avoiding b hop and RJJ in there prime what are your opinions please

[gudnite vienna]

its simple, he wanted to fight both of them but didnt want 2 travel back then.. Only has himself to blame i suppose...

[Andre]

its simple, he wanted to fight both of them but didnt want 2 travel back then.. Only has himself to blame i suppose...

After all,Wales is where its all at.

[gudnite vienna]

hey i agree with you.. but he was prepared to fight both of them years back but wanted the fight in wales...

He really did waste the best years of his career..

[sonny78]

Lets face it Calzaghe was never a big draw even if he would have traveled I doubt they would have fought because he never had fans like Hatton untill he beat Lacy

Only person to blame is Warren

[Trainer Monkey]

hey i agree with you.. but he was prepared to fight both of them years back but wanted the fight in wales...

He really did waste the best years of his career..

A suprisingly candid non homerish way of looking at it,sorry Vienna you can be a bit of a homer for Joe
The whole thing seriously screws with whatever legacy he was hoping to build,a highly questionable decision against an old Hopkins,beating and getting knocked down by a seriously spent Jones,and Lacy and Manfredo just got sparked.
He should have gone for it early,then we could have a real debate about his place in boxing history,but right now,Im looking at a gift decision,a has been,and two never really weres

[gudnite vienna]

still think he'll have a couple more fights... If he beats Dawson and then Froch, he will of beaten two prime world champions, if froch wins that is...

But if he would of gone over to the states years ago he could of made himself one of the biggest stars in boxing...

[Fenster]

Can you guys give me your opions and help settle an argument
I am debating with someone who believes that calzaghe did not go to the us in his prime thus avoiding b hop and RJJ in there prime what are your opinions please

Just use the Hopkins doubling his purse from 3 to 6 million argument. Calzaghe tried to make the fight but he wasn't interested. Nothing you can do if the other guy doesn't want to fight you.

Anyway, as sonny said, Calzaghe was a nobody back then. Roy could fight far easier guys for probably the same money he would have got for Calzaghe. So why fight him?

[Trainer Monkey]

still think he'll have a couple more fights... If he beats Dawson and then Froch, he will of beaten two prime world champions, if froch wins that is...

But if he would of gone over to the states years ago he could of made himself one of the biggest stars in boxing...

A rematch with Kessler and Froch or Dawson, then we can start talking legacy.
I hope he does exactly that
Not all of this is Joe's fault or even Warrens(but more Warren then Joe), but right now it stands that he's got a win over a clearly spent Jones, a "win"(haha) over a Hopkins in his 40's, a win over an injured Kessler,and two wins against guys who just got sparked badly.
This does not a legacy make, he torches Dawson or Froch,and rematches a healthy Kessler that has both hands,we're having a totally different discussion,and nobody will care about those earlier fights.

[HattonTheHammer]

Can you guys give me your opions and help settle an argument
I am debating with someone who believes that calzaghe did not go to the us in his prime thus avoiding b hop and RJJ in there prime what are your opinions please

Just use the Hopkins doubling his purse from 3 to 6 million argument. Calzaghe tried to make the fight but he wasn't interested. Nothing you can do if the other guy doesn't want to fight you.

Anyway, as sonny said, Calzaghe was a nobody back then. Roy could fight far easier guys for probably the same money he would have got for Calzaghe. So why fight him?

pretty much spot on

Nobody stateside took calzaghe genuinely seriously despite having that 0 on his record many pundits just took him as a decent european challenger that would be more of a foil and a spoiler for the likes of jones/toney/hopkins etc

It was only when jeff lacy came to manchester for a mandatory challenge that the likes of HBO stood up and realised there was actually a genuine hall of fame legend that had gone relatively unnoticed.

The same thing kinda happened to sven ottke and mikkel kessler is struggling with the same problem!!

[gudnite vienna]

he beat hopkins who is still one of the top 5 fighters in the world, Stop making excuses up for kessler he got beat end of..

He beat Lacy, who everyone had as the favourite so he cant of been that shit, and of course eubank, who he beat more convincingly then anyone..

[cpcompany]

Whether he was injured or not Kessler, doesnt warrant a rematch. He got in the ring, lost comprehensively and Calzaghe has nothing to gain from another fight with him

[CGM]

Can you guys give me your opions and help settle an argument
I am debating with someone who believes that calzaghe did not go to the us in his prime thus avoiding b hop and RJJ in there prime what are your opinions please

Just use the Hopkins doubling his purse from 3 to 6 million argument. Calzaghe tried to make the fight but he wasn't interested. Nothing you can do if the other guy doesn't want to fight you.

Anyway, as sonny said, Calzaghe was a nobody back then. Roy could fight far easier guys for probably the same money he would have got for Calzaghe. So why fight him?

BHOP probably didn't want to move up to SMW to fight a nobody. Why bother? Middleweight was the better division. BUt when the time came BHOP was ready to fight. The irony for BHOP is, back in the day his superiority over Calzaghe would be definite, IMO.

[Rantcatrat]

hey i agree with you.. but he was prepared to fight both of them years back but wanted the fight in wales...

He really did waste the best years of his career..

A suprisingly candid non homerish way of looking at it,sorry Vienna you can be a bit of a homer for Joe
The whole thing seriously screws with whatever legacy he was hoping to build,a highly questionable decision against an old Hopkins,beating and getting knocked down by a seriously spent Jones,and Lacy and Manfredo just got sparked.
He should have gone for it early,then we could have a real debate about his place in boxing history,but right now,Im looking at a gift decision,a has been,and two never really weres

That is wrong. He dominated RJJ. You can't qualify that win at all. He definitively beat RJJ evidenced by the fact that Calzaghe didn't really fight the last two rounds. RJJ was badly cut, and Calzaghe completely avoided punching the cut. The Hopkins fight was close, but look how good Hopkins still is: in his next performance Hopkins completely shut down the middleweight champion of the world. Yet in the Calzaghe fight, he was content to run and clinch. Hopkins, the mastermind, fought a bad fight against Calzaghe. It wasn't by accident. Calzaghe took him out of his element. Moreover, that fact that Calzaghe went down twice and won both fights is further testament to his greatness, not a knock on it.

His legacy should and will be discounted by the lack of champion caliber fighters he fought in his prime, but it is still a very, very good legacy. Anyone who has Bhop and RJJ on his list of wins, regardless of when the fight took place, has a good legacy. Add Kessler, Lacy, and Bika to the list, and you have a very good legacy. Not the best, but a very good one.

[Fenster]

Can you guys give me your opions and help settle an argument
I am debating with someone who believes that calzaghe did not go to the us in his prime thus avoiding b hop and RJJ in there prime what are your opinions please

Just use the Hopkins doubling his purse from 3 to 6 million argument. Calzaghe tried to make the fight but he wasn't interested. Nothing you can do if the other guy doesn't want to fight you.

Anyway, as sonny said, Calzaghe was a nobody back then. Roy could fight far easier guys for probably the same money he would have got for Calzaghe. So why fight him?

BHOP probably didn't want to move up to SMW to fight a nobody. Why bother? Middleweight was the better division. BUt when the time came BHOP was ready to fight. The irony for BHOP is, back in the day his superiority over Calzaghe would be definite, IMO.

Don't think so. There were no names at middleweight either. It took Trinidad moving up to give Hopkins a BIG NAME fight. After that (which is when the Calzaghe offer was made) he fought no-names like Hakkar, and Robert Allen for the 50th time, before little Oscar obliged him with a big payday.

BOTH are probably very pleased the way things turned out (the fight not happening in 2002). When they finally fought they were both much bigger names.. earning much more dough