Quote Originally Posted by miles
Quote Originally Posted by gudnite vienna
i would back calzaghe to win, but i know for a fact that if he does, there will be alot of people on this forum saying Kessler was'nt a top class oppenent and was unproven against top fighters.

Calzaghe can do no right in some people's eyes, which is sad because he's top #5 fighters to come out of the UK.
A majority of the forum members here were saying that Lacy would beat Calzaghe. Lacy was on a roll of hype and many were along for the ride. The fight then happened and Calzaghe beat him in the most one sided manner possible. Lacy has not been the same since. Most of Calzaghe's opponents havent been the same since they've taken a good slapping! And yet within a matter of months after the jubilation had worn down it was decided that Lacy wasnt quite the real deal and was indeed overrated. Overrated by whom exactly?? The bookies must have slipped up by giving Lacy such a huge shot and a vast number of forum members here must have been hoodwinked by sheer propaganda and screens and mirrors!

A large number of people on here have again been crawling out to attack Calzaghe. He is a chicken! He fights only bums! If he doesnt face Kessler then he is a coward! So that means those same people are actually rating Kessler then? Rating him on what? Beating the mighty Andrade? Mundine? Or even the whirlwind himself...Markus Beyer!!!

I think this fight will go ahead and the fans will get the treat they deserved. A decent fight between the best 2 the division has to offer. Kessler has a few "decent" names on his record but has shown little to suggest to me he will beat Calzaghe on skills alone. Does anyone really think Calzaghe wouldnt have beaten any of the fighters Kessler has beaten? Im not going to go into an analysis of how I think Calzaghe: Kessler might go but I am going to suggest that once the hoo ha has died down and if Calzaghe does indeed beat Kessler, that the same critics will once again crawl out and say that Calzaghe beat a green opponent! He beat a guy with flaws! A guy who wasnt Jones or Hopkins (even though they are old and never wanted a fight in the first place anyways!)....

You are damned if you do and you are damned if you dont! Boxing fans can be a fickle bunch!
You make a good arguement Miles, but I don't think it's fair to draw a dead comparison between people giving Lacy a great chance against Joe and now giving Kessler a good shot and hyping him up... The thing is, hindsight works in two ways here.. I think it is valid to say that Lacy wasn't as good as many had thought, as well as that he hadn't beaten fighters as good as Kessler has(that has nothing to do with hinsight really).. Mundine, Andrade, and Beyer may not be p4p guys, but they were definetly a step up from an old Robin Reid and Scott Pemberton, who were really Lacy's only two impressive wins prior to fighting Joe. The other side of it is, that we now know how good Calzaghe IS at the present time, and what he can do in big fights, again thanks to hinsight. If Joe had put on a performance as great as he did against Lacy, and against someone who had been so hyped up, prior to fighting Jeff, I think it's very safe to say those people wouldn't have been nearly as confident in Lacy's chances to beat Joe. Wheras now, people know what Calzaghe is capable of doing in the ring, and he's gotten his dues, yet people STILL rate Kesslers chances at beating him very highly, simply because Mikkel has also shown great things recently, and has never really struggled with an opponent. Go ahead and watch Lacy's fights against Omar Sheika, Rubin Williams, Syd Vanderpool, or Donnel Wiggins. He had SEVERE troubles in all of those fights, and they certainly were overlooked... But that wasn't due to anything he did, or rather corrected.. Kessler is a much better fighter than Lacy ever was, and if people don't see that now, or deny it after the fight then fine, but you've got to ask what their opinion is really worth in the first place.