By Nate Anderson: In the latest war of words, former middleweight and light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (48-4-1, 32 KOs) is cutting though the pleasantries by calling undefeated super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe (44-0, 32 KOs) “amateurish” and promising punishment along the way. If one weren’t alaready aware of Hopkin’s history, they’d incorrectly assume that Hopkins was just making hyperbolic statements in order to sell a few more tickets to the boxing public.
However, Hopkins always speaks like that and he gnerally means what he says when promising a whole lost of punishment for Calzaghe. Hopkins, whos is coming off of two sensational wins over Antonio Tarver and Winky Wright, has proven himself in the past against fighters as good, if not better than Calzaghe over and over again. That’s where the problem lies for Calzaghe, because Hopkins has much more experience against top level fighters than Calzaghe has and that’s going to possibly be problem for the Welsh fighter.
Hopkins has beaten high volume fighters like Felix Trinidad, Oscar De La Hoya and Glen Johnson to name just a few, whereas Calaghe essentially has beaten only one good opponent in his entire career – Mikkel Kessler. Hopkins, if one were to believe his comments, is well prepared for Calzaghe’s 1000 punch per fight output and will no doubt he ready to meet it with equal aggression in return.
Perhaps too much has been made of Calzaghe’s high volume punch output considering that Hopkins punches harder and has proven to have the style to beat a high volume attack. It’s not how many punches a fighter throws that’s important; it’s how many shots are connection and who is landing the harder punches. Most people would aggree that Hopkins is the harder puncher of the two, which will be something that may more than make up for his more advanced age.