Calzaghe's win over B-Hop looks better all the time.......

[marbleheadmaui]

Yep thats gotta be his best win, out of the 3-4 good fighters he's faced in 46 fights.

You're right Calzaghe should have played it like B-Hop, beat up blownup Welterweights to make a name for himself early in his career.

You can argue who won the fight, but that whiteboy didn't make it easy for B-Hop. THis whole B-Hop won 4 or 5 more rounds is ridiculous.

and Calzaghe made his name beating up on has beens (Jones and Eubank) pretenders (Sheika, Bika and Manfredo Jr), or given gift decisions (Hopkins and Reid), his only stand out non controversial wins that deserve any real praise are his wins against Kessler and Lacey

as always it works both ways

Yes it goes both ways homey. The same people shitting on JC, his resume, and fighting ability, mysteriously excuse Hopkins for everything else.

Here is one major difference. BHOP really did wreck the middles from 1994-2004 didn't he? Was there any obvious guy he didn't face? With JC at 168 the story just isn't the same.

Here is another major difference. Hopkins didn't leave America for one single fight during that period. Between 1994 and 2004 he fought 18 opponents. 16 were American based. 1 was Canadian. So the only guy travelling from outside North America was - Hakkar. An average French alphabet ranked no.1 contender.

Calzaghe lived in Britain.
Ottke lived in Germany.
Liles/Nunn/Echols lived in America (these are pretty poor choices really).

It's blatantly obvious that matching fighters from different countries is far more problematic than when everyone is operating in the same place. Especially when these fighters are posing as "world" champion with their different pieces of alphabet.

It's fine to say no excuses these guys should have met. But it's clearly not that simple.

Actually it is. One gets credit for the fights one actually has and none for the ones one doesn't. Everything else is excuses or rationalizations.

That's fine. Only judge fighters by whom they have fought.

But it's unfair to penalise fighters for failing to meet guys that didn't want to fight.

Sven Ottke's trainer, Ulli Wegner, has gone on record to state that Ottke never wanted anything to do with Calzaghe. There were numerous attempts to make this fight. So Calzaghe deserves to be forever downplayed because a man REFUSED to fight him?

Sure. His resume with a win over Ottke would have been better, right? His resume with a win over Liles? better still. Echols? better yet.

If it is ONE guy? Doesn't matter much as a single win can't usually change a lot in terms of resume. It is when, off the top of one's head one can come up with 5-6 that one starts to say hmmmmm.

Let's not forget, I'm not arguing Calzaghe wasn't a great fighter. The issue is how great? That's pretty rarified air and comp matters a great deal doesn't it?