I have a hard job trying to see how Hopkins could have won.

For what it's worth here are the punch stats

CompuBox Final Stats: Bernard Hopkins vs. Joe Calzaghe

It was a close fight though and I can't disagree with those who say that Joe didn't wrest the title away from Hopkins as he was the only fighter who was hurt in the fight.

I've certainly seen worse decisions in boxing than it would have been to award Hopkins the win, but for me he won the fight.

I saw it as about as close as Mayweather Oscar with an additional point to Oscar for a knockdown. That would certainly leave it pretty close, 115/113 or something and if it would have gone to Hopkins Calzaghe would have been stretching it to say he was robbed blind.

At the end of the day though I truly think the right man won the fight.

I mean regardless of whether people preferred the more accurate shots of Hopkins the punchstats are clear that Calzaghe massively outlanded him and out worked him. He also controlled the whole fight, coming forward the whole time trying to make things happen.

Hopkins was awkward especially early but by the late rounds he was just holding and looking to spoil. I think it was the 10th when he claimed a dubious low blow and took the full 5 minutes to recover, then he tried again in the 11th but the ref was wise to it that time.

From about the 8th or 9th round he didn't try and win the fight, he just tried to spoil and prevent Joe from doing anything.

I personally think those kind of boxers deserve to lose close fights because they have a negative attitude but then I guess that's just me.

Look at Ishe Smith against Powell and Julio. Both fights he has a case for maybe doing enough, but he won't let his hands go and is so risk aversive that he gets outworked. Sure he does better work, but he does far less than the other guy overall.

That has been Hopkins problem in all 3 of his defeats in recent years.