At the risk of boxing blasphemy

[killersheep]

Like I say folks I'm not discrediting I openly admit I know nothing about him, but he's one of those names that seems to be almost hallowed in that nobody will ever criticise his resume or anything about him ever.

Yet if you mention Joe Calzaghe for example, who also totally dominated his weight class, never lost a fight, or even drew one, and beat two not only Hall of Famers but arguably two of the greatest of all time, people will literally leap to tell you why he is so overatted, has a padded record, should of lost to Hopkins and Reid, avoided the big names, had a poor defense, no punch, slaps etc etc.

So it's a fair question, is Calzaghe criticised so much more than Lopez because he was far inferior to Lopez or is it merely because if they are honest, nobody really knows much about Ricardo Lopez other than watching a few highlights or a couple of his major fights?

I mean with a guy like Calzaghe, virtually all of his opponents are well known to us, so we can criticise each of them in turn and point out why they were weak oppositon or old, or past their best, or had padded records themselves.

Whereas with Lopez I expect even Britkid has only heard of maybe a dozen opponents at best and most of them only in relation to fighting Lopez.

That's all I'm saying, was he really THAT good, or does fighting at an obscure weight, and the resulting lack of information and knowledge available to us as a result mean that his record and ability is simply not scrutinised as much?

He was on TV a decent amount over here in the 90s. Most of his competition was not well known, but that's simply because of the nature of the 105 lbers. His definately was THAT good, his skill in the ring and his power were phenomenal. He travelled around the world fighting whomever would step into the ring with him. I think a big reason that people liked him so much was because he was exciting, you knew he could pull out that eraser at any time, or he could simply outbox his opponents. Before you get on another holy than thou rant about him make an effort to watch some of his fights.

And for the record I give Calzaghe full credit for what he did. But the fact that give Lopez crap for only going up one division should apply to Calzaghe as well.

[Kev]

Like I say folks I'm not discrediting I openly admit I know nothing about him, but he's one of those names that seems to be almost hallowed in that nobody will ever criticise his resume or anything about him ever.

Yet if you mention Joe Calzaghe for example, who also totally dominated his weight class, never lost a fight, or even drew one, and beat two not only Hall of Famers but arguably two of the greatest of all time, people will literally leap to tell you why he is so overatted, has a padded record, should of lost to Hopkins and Reid, avoided the big names, had a poor defense, no punch, slaps etc etc.

So it's a fair question, is Calzaghe criticised so much more than Lopez because he was far inferior to Lopez or is it merely because if they are honest, nobody really knows much about Ricardo Lopez other than watching a few highlights or a couple of his major fights?

I mean with a guy like Calzaghe, virtually all of his opponents are well known to us, so we can criticise each of them in turn and point out why they were weak oppositon or old, or past their best, or had padded records themselves.

Whereas with Lopez I expect even Britkid has only heard of maybe a dozen opponents at best and most of them only in relation to fighting Lopez.

That's all I'm saying, was he really THAT good, or does fighting at an obscure weight, and the resulting lack of information and knowledge available to us as a result mean that his record and ability is simply not scrutinised as much?

He was on TV a decent amount over here in the 90s. Most of his competition was not well known, but that's simply because of the nature of the 105 lbers. His definately was THAT good, his skill in the ring and his power were phenomenal. He travelled around the world fighting whomever would step into the ring with him. I think a big reason that people liked him so much was because he was exciting, you knew he could pull out that eraser at any time, or he could simply outbox his opponents. Before you get on another holy than thou rant about him make an effort to watch some of his fights.

And for the record I give Calzaghe full credit for what he did. But the fact that give Lopez crap for only going up one division should apply to Calzaghe as well.

Believe me I do, Calzaghe isn't one of my greatest ever either.

And its hardly a holier than thou rant, I openly admited I don't know anything about him, just wondered what it is exactly that makes almost everyone pick him automatically as one of the best ever.