Joe Calzaghe deserves credit, no doubt, and no doubt in time he'll be a legend belonging to the Jimmy Wildes and the Ted "Kid" Lewises of yesteryear, but I have to disagree with your "rant" at the end. To be a great fighter, you have to beat great fighters when they're at or not too far from their best.
Otherwise, why isn't our own Terry Downes an all-time great with his win over a 44-year-old Sugar Ray Robinson, the greatest pound for pound fighter who ever lived?
The facts are these.
Calzaghe kept a useless belt in a dead division for far too long, and it was not until his win over Jeff Lacy did he have any marketable value beyond Britain. Calzaghe needed the recognition, so he should have been willing to go to them. Like Jones said, "Now that Joe's the man, I'm willing to come to Wales...but before, I was the man. You want some of my glory, you gotta come to me."
Calzaghe fought for the most part a string of nobodies: Pudwill, McIntyre, Starie, Thornbury, Salem, Jimenez, etc., etc., who in all honesty weren't in anyone's independent list as being a top 20 fighter in the division at the time. Most of the former world champs he fought had been beaten by rival champ Sven Ottke before he had faced them, and Chris Eubank was in the middle of a five-bout losing streak when he faced him.
The crux of everyone's argument seems to be Kessler and Lacy. You discuss reputation a lot, but there's a difference between hype and achievements of the fighters. I think Bernard Hopkins said it best when he said:
"Okay, he beat Jeff Lacy—give me a 'name' fighter he beat."
"Okay, he fought Kessler—give me a 'name' fighter he beat."
There aren't any. Kessler in particular fought similar flotsam to Calzaghe, with a well-worn Markus Beyer and Anthony Mundine as his only decent opponents—but name me decent fighters they beat, i.e. those who Joe Public would recognise?
At the end of the day, when Calzaghe fought Hopkins and Jones, their recent ring records coming into their fight with him were 2-2 and 3-3 respectively, and they had a combined age of nearly 85. Those are the only Hall of Fame fighters he faced, and both were obviously past their best.
Hopkins beat three HOF fighters and Jones beat five HOF fighters, including beating 20 current, future, or former world champs. Against his fellow peers, Calzaghe's ring legacy is nowhere near that of the last two fighters he fought.
If a 43-year-old Hopkins (I'm 23 and he's older than my mother) can put him down and push him to the brink of defeat, what do you think the Hopkins of a few years ago would have done?
If Roy Jones at nearly 40 can put him down and outspeed Calzaghe for the first four rounds, what do you think would have happened when Jones was the best P4P fighter in the world consecutively between 1994 to 2004? Everyone knows that Jones wasn't the same fighter anymore when he came back down from heavyweight. Joe knew it—he even wrote it in his autobiography.
People also say Jones and Calzaghe are close in age with only a three-year difference. But precious few fighters are successful past the age of 36. Take the following facts.
Roy Jones at 36 did not have any real defeat on his record, just a disqualification loss he reversed with a first round KO, which meant basically the man went 50-0. At 39 he's 52-5.
Muhammad Ali at 36 was 55-2. He retired at 39 with a 56-5 mark.
Lennox Lewis at 36 looked great thrashing an over the hill Mike Tyson, but at nearly 38 he was awful against Vitali Klitschko (and was losing).
Larry Holmes was 48-0 at 36, but at 38 he was 48-3.
Don't get me wrong—I give Calzaghe credit. I could name a ton of fighters who were beaten by last minute nobodies, but I think Calzaghe is great simply because of his longevity, that is all. But long undefeated records are common amongst stay at home European fighters.
Take Sven Ottke (34-0, 21 defences), Dariusz Michalewski (48-0, 23 defences), and our own Chris Eubank, who went 47 bouts unbeaten with 19 successful defences to his credit.
4 comments Last one added 6 months ago — Leave a Comment
marco vasquez 6 months ago
I really think your digging to deep to thrash Joe. If thats the case you can say that about all fighters. He fought what was called the best at the time. He fought the guy that should have beat him. After the fact that he beat those fighters they became nothing. Not Joe's fault. Joe was calling out Roy Jones JR for years..Never happened till Jones had no choice in his career. you can't take away from him being one of the best of our times. Do you consider Roy Jones jr one of the best! He made a career of not fighting any great fighters, always avoiding any threat. If thats what people call great then no wonder they say Boxing is going down hill. Fighters fight to see how is the best. Not like what Floyd Mayweather says...... ( We are not fighting to find out who is the best)
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Garlic boy 6 months ago
Ismail,
Nice article. I agree. I think Joe should have fought Roy Jones Jr, when he was in his prime and he should have also fought Hopkins in his prime. He should have fought them 10 years earlier.
Marco,
RJJ fought no one? How about wins over James Toney, Hopkins, Virgil Hill and DOMINATING Montell Griffin in 1 round after Montell Griffin ran his mouth over a DQ victory. Those are SOLID wins. THREE SOLID WINS OVER HALL OF FAME FIGHTERS WHO WENT ON TO WIN BELTS IN HEAVIER WEIGHT CLASSES.
RJJ was the man in his prime, nobody could touch him.
I still rank RJJ as a FAR better fighter than Calzaghe in both fighter's primes. RJJ is 39 years old. If he retired 5 years ago at the age of 34, he'd be in the GREATEST OF ALL TIME discussions.
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Ismail Ayub 6 months ago
Well said Garlic! Jones was probably one of the best fighters of the last 25 years and like you said had quality wins against the fighters you mentioned and a couple of others too like Tito Trinidad, Jorge Vaca (who beat our own Lloyd Honeyghan for the title) not to mention him being the only man to stop our own durable Clinton Woods (whom would later become champ and successfully defend it 4 times after losing to Jones).
He also beat the previously undefeated Julio Gonzalez whom would go on to twice defeat the 48-0 Dariusz Michaelswki whom held the WBO belt as the same time Jones was the undisputed champ after having made 23 defences of the title. These are I feel a few of his more underrated wins, and of course the only man in 106 years to win the middleweight and heavyweight titles and then going back down to win the light heavyweight crown!
I'm a big admirer of Joe Calzaghe, he went undefeated whilst fighting in complete obscurity whilst getting what most fighters would call 'chump change.' That takes tremendous dedication not mention the poor training facilities, a father as a trainer with no boxing experience whatsoever and sparring partners usually limited to his own stable, plus his string of injuries. His longevity also outlasted his peers at the highest level i.e. Eubank & Benn (Herol Graham fought till he was 38). He is also Britain's longest reigning world champion - at 11 years with a record number of title fights 24.
But quality matters not necessarily quantity JC fought lots and lots of club fighters I know it weren't necessarily his fault but look what Ricky Hatton did after it took Frank Warren 7 years for him to get Hatton a legitimate world crown. Hatton dumped him for a tour of the States and within 4 years will have fought two of the best p4p fighters in the world- Mayweather & Pacquiao- when they were at they're peaks.
Given the above the top 5 greatest British fighters of all time are--
i) Jimmy Wilde
ii) Ted 'Kid' Lewis
iii) Lennox Lewis
iv) Joe Calzaghe
v) Randolph Turpin
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Nathan Armour 6 months ago
I agree with some points many of you are saying here, whether I agree with them or not is just a matter of opinion. However, for all the people who criticize Calzaghe a bit too much I don't see what he has to do to prove himself more. He's fought the best he can right? And I don't think he can go back in time and fight the greats. I don't like what people have to say about him fighting B-Hop or Jones earlier in his career because it just wasn't happening, Calzaghe was a nobody to be fair even with as much title defenses as he had back then (there are other reasons which I presented in my article recently). If he was too scared to fight certain boxers (Jeff Lacy, Kelly Pavlik) I'm sure he would have retired years ago, but no, he is still in the sport and he is the best there is. No matter what happens there's always going to be someone he didn't fight. This Chad Dawson for example, real boxing fans know thats a joke. I enjoyed reading the comments that came with the article so nice one =)
narm
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