Enzo Calzaghe to Hopkins: “Don’t be a coward!”

[Kirkland Laing]

Manny Pac, Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera all did great numbers in the US. They are not US fighters. Why? Cuz people gave a damn about them. Nobody gives a damn about Calzaghe except the Welsh. He proved it in his fights with Kessler and Bika. The Kessler fight was the lowest rating fighte ever. The Bika fight one of the lowest.

They did great numbers cuz of the Hispanic community buying their fights. If you're going to judge Calzaghe by how well he does on America TV then you have to judhe Hopkins on how well he'd do on UK TV. By any fair method of judging their respective popularity Calzaghe wins easily, like he will on Saturday night.

You can't do that. Calzaghe fights get shown here in the US by HBO and ShowTime. The UK boxing coverage of none UK fighters sucks. From what I heard you guys didn't get to watch Rafael Marquez-Israel Vazquez 3. What's that tell you? Calzaghe has been covered in the US for years. But nobody gives a damn about him.

And again we come back to objectivity. By any objective method of determining popularity Calzaghe is streets ahead. If he had a natural base of support in the States as big as the Hispanic community he'd be a huge star.