Quote Originally Posted by hattonthehammer View Post
How the hell can bernard hopkins be seen as not being in his "prime"?

Oh thats right because he was 6 years older than joe calzaghe when he fought him and as the kelly pavlik fight showed (which by the way the same pathetic saddoers who claim dawson would beat calzaghe claimed pavlik would ruin him ) he is clearly way past his glory days isnt he??

Perhaps the second a guy turns 35 he should automatically be discarded and perhaps even forced into retirement..lennox lewis should of been made to hand over his title to michael grant despite knocking him out in 2rounds because even with that performance his age suggests to everyone on here that he was way past his prime at the time!!

Ever heard of "maturing like a fine wine"??

NO......

How about desperate, angry bitter americans who cant take the fact your boys arent actually the superstars youve spent decades making them out to be!!!!!!!!!
I think the best thing Joe can do is stay retired. I feel by keeping on fighting he may raise his legacy for a short time but eventually he would lose and do damage to it.

Roy Jones is a classic example of this. If he'd retired after the first Tarver fight he would have been officially 48-1 but theoretically undefeated cos his only loss was DQ and he revenged that with a brutal first round KO. He'd have reitred a 4 weight champ and with a much greater record than Joes. But he went one fight too many and has been ruining his legacy ever since.

Julio Cesar Chavez is the same. Say he had retired before the Randall fight at 89-0. 3 division champ. His legacy would have been atleast as good as Joes, but by going on too long he ruined it.

Felix Trinidad could have had a similiar record to Joe as well. If he'd retired before the Hopkins fight at 40-0. He'd have won titles in 3 divisions, had 21 title defenses and consistently fought better competition than Joe to defend those titles, he just went on too long.

Im just trying to say that Joes career is nothing that outta the ordinary. Its just he has probably timed things better.