No matter who he beats, can calzaghe be the lbs4lbs greatest?

[donnydarkoIRL]

Buhlestnoble:
In his early career Joe hit hard. Chris Eubank recorded in his auto biography that Calzaghe gave him a painful war in which he impressed the former Champ. With several stoppages in a row, Joe began to punch with less conviction when his recurring hand problems became a great hinderence.

Against a puncher like Kessler it is inevitable that at one stage or another you will be hurt. Calzaghe however, looked more subceptible to punishment than he ever did. And he said afterward he had been hurt badly on a number of occasions.

Calzaghe himself has said that he has altered his punch technique in order to preserve his brittle hands. In order to prove this theory all one has to do is compare his recent fights with his first twenty in which he was a conventional puncher who always went for the stoppage

When questioned who I feel is the best physical guy in the sport I first must contest that I said the best combination of boxing thought and physicality.

However the best physical athlete may be Pacquiao, although his thought leaves something to be desired.

Mayweather deserves the pound for pound mantel.

[PRIDE OF BOSTON]

Buhlestnoble:
In his early career Joe hit hard. Chris Eubank recorded in his auto biography that Calzaghe gave him a painful war in which he impressed the former Champ. With several stoppages in a row, Joe began to punch with less conviction when his recurring hand problems became a great hinderence.

Against a puncher like Kessler it is inevitable that at one stage or another you will be hurt. Calzaghe however, looked more subceptible to punishment than he ever did. And he said afterward he had been hurt badly on a number of occasions.

Calzaghe himself has said that he has altered his punch technique in order to preserve his brittle hands. In order to prove this theory all one has to do is compare his recent fights with his first twenty in which he was a conventional puncher who always went for the stoppage

When questioned who I feel is the best physical guy in the sport I first must contest that I said the best combination of boxing thought and physicality.

However the best physical athlete may be Pacquiao, although his thought leaves something to be desired.

Mayweather deserves the pound for pound mantel.

Yeah, both those guys can't even be argued about for one and two. You've got both types of physicality in those fighters... Pac is a swarming guy who has a tendancy to bully... He has been polished quite a bit under Roach's tutalage, though. Floyd, although thought of as a "puncher" early in his career(it's funny... I was watching his first 2 pro fights yesterday and they were preaching about how he's a pure puncher) he has the physical gifts to not have to be... He doesn't need to put himself in harm's way anymore to deal damage. He still has power even moving devisions... Although he does pile up accumilation punches he can still KO a guy when he has to (a la Hatton).

[donnydarkoIRL]

Early in his career Mayweather could be viewed as one of the premier punches in his division and even today, if there is a fighter who can stop you at Welterweight it would be Floyd. So I agree with you there Pride.

I also agree that Pacquiao has been polished by Roach.
Many including myself have taken a dim view of some of Roach's mannorisms before fights (abandoning fighters) but he has worked well for Pacquiao.

[PRIDE OF BOSTON]

Early in his career Mayweather could be viewed as one of the premier punches in his division and even today, if there is a fighter who can stop you at Welterweight it would be Floyd. So I agree with you there Pride.

I also agree that Pacquiao has been polished by Roach.
Many including myself have taken a dim view of some of Roach's mannorisms before fights (abandoning fighters) but he has worked well for Pacquiao.

Yeah, Roach pisses me off with his Mercinary ways of late. I give Roach credit for polishing Pac but he was already such a tremendous athlete before he ended up at the Wildcard, I don't give him all of it.

I think Roach is a good trainer but not as good as people give him credit for.

He, for some reason thinks he can jump in with a fighter 6 weeks before a fight and turn mold him into what he wants.

He's not Jesus Christ. It takes top level trainers years to get to know a fighter and it irks me that he takes exhorbidant amounts of money to take a fighter on short notice and leaves his stable waiting in the wings...

This is not the type of person I would want training me... a friggin mercenary...

He says him and Pac are like best friends and Roach is even a father figure... It's cuz it's his meal ticket. He has very little loyalty to fighters...

You don't have the guys like Cus and Dundee anymore that will BE THERE nomatter what kind of shit goes down.

Roach gets a phonecall from Delahoya and (not that I blame him a whole lot but he screwed Manfredo) next thing you know Peter is fighting in a world title fight in front of 45000 hostile fans across an ocean from home.... Without his security blanket. He lost alot of my respect April 7th 2007.

That's just me though

[buhlestnoble]

Fair play hitmandonny your entitled to your view and I cant really prove anything against it but I don’t really agree that calzaghe hasn’t really been punching since late 1990s. Changing his technique and saying this is why he doesn’t KO anymore certainly isn’t something I have heard joe talk about often if not at all. But the stats do show more Kos early in his career although I believe this was because generally the standard of opponent was lower.

On the p4p list calzaghe moves ahead of pacquiao on my list to no 2 if he beats Hopkins and certainly if he fights and beats say pavlik

[donnydarkoIRL]

Fair play hitmandonny your entitled to your view and I cant really prove anything against it but I don’t really agree that calzaghe hasn’t really been punching since late 1990s. Changing his technique and saying this is why he doesn’t KO anymore certainly isn’t something I have heard joe talk about often if not at all. But the stats do show more Kos early in his career although I believe this was because generally the standard of opponent was lower.

On the p4p list calzaghe moves ahead of pacquiao on my list to no 2 if he beats Hopkins and certainly if he fights and beats say pavlik

Well my belief was primarily founded after the Ashira bout.
Calzaghe started very strong and the commentators speculated that he wanted an early night. He punched very conventionally and looked like he was going to finish early until the break in the hand. After that he trew only the right hand.

After that fight there was an interview with Enzo, who said usually they punched differently so as to avoid hand damage.

Actually now that I think of it, Enzo spends so long teaching his boxers proper punching technique (with the shoulder) he would be rather annoyed at his star pupil for arm punching if they hadn't planned it wouldn't he?

And you may well be right about Calzaghe passing PAC INTO NUMBER 2. iT'S A CLOSE RACE.