By Chris Stein: After watching undefeated Joe Calzaghe struggle for 12 dull rounds against a 43 year-old Bernard Hopkins last Saturday night in Las Vegas, Nevada, I couldn’t help but feel slightly unimpressed with what I was seeing. I’d only seen a couple of glimpses of him fight previous to this on youtube, and frankly I wasn’t enthralled with who Calzaghe was fighting in the video. In most cases, Calzaghe was going up against fairly average super middleweight fodder and it came to no surprise to me that he was ultimately successful in winning the fights.
However, against the old ring veteran Bernard Hopkins, who Calzaghe should have been able to easily defeat, if he really is as good as many people say he is. Calzaghe looked nothing like a champion in the ring. In fact, Hopkins looked much like the better fighter, both in power and ring skills. When Calzaghe would attempt to trade with Hopkins, all he could offer up were harmless slaps which did nothing against the tough-chinned Hopkins. Mostly, though, Calzaghe’s punches were blocked by Hopkins, who would fire back with powerful right hands of his own.
Is it me or did Calzaghe look mediocre for a championship fighter. I can think of a handful of fighters, in the light heavyweight and super middleweight class that are better fighters and would likely easily beat Calzaghe if given the chance. For starters, I see both Chad Dawson and Antonio Tarver as being better overall fighters in the light heavyweight division. I’ll forgive Calzaghe for not being able to beat either one of them, considering that he isn’t a natural light heavyweight and is fighting out of his weight class. However, that doesn’t excuse the fact that both of them would likely beat Calzaghe if given the chance at a fight with him.
Naturally, Calzaghe won’t ever set foot in the ring with either of them, since he’s made it clear that his likely future fight with Roy Jones Jr., rumored to be taking place in November, will be the last fight of his career. I expect him to change his mind about that, especially when they start wavering millions of dollars in front of Calzaghe’s nose when, and if, he beats Jones. Likewise, I also think that Glen Johnson would be a very tough fight for Calzaghe, and I’d be hard-pressed to pick a winner in the bout. Calzaghe has the much better speed and workrate but he’d have big problems with the power and pressure that Johnson would be putting on him all fight long.
If a great fighter like Chad Dawson can have problems against Johnson, then I don’t like Calzaghe’s chances against Johnson one bit. There are one or two others in the light heavyweight division that would give big problems to Calzaghe, namely Adrian Diaconu and Zsolt Erdei. Both would be very tough because of their sound boxing skills, very hard jab and excellent power. This wouldn’t be a fight that Calzaghe could slap his way though and hope to overwhelm them like he has against his mostly mediocre opponents during his career. Against the likes of them, Calzaghe would have to fight for his left and hope that he can somehow scrap out a decision. He’d be badly marked up, much more than in his fight against Hopkins.
In the super middleweight division, I don’t see Calzaghe beating Edison Miranda, Fulgencia Zuniga, and Jermain Taylor. All of them either are faster or much more powerful than him and would be bouts that Calzaghe would come out on the short end, that is, if the fight was fought in the U.S. Zuniga, a volume puncher who gave Kelly Pavlik fits, fighting him at an even pace until the fight was stopped when he was cut, would likely overwhelm Calzaghe with punches. He’d end up beating Calzaghe at his own game, bitting him more than a 1000 times in a 12-round bout.
Zuniga is the king of volume punching and I can think of none better than him in any of the divisions, from middleweight up to the heavyweight class. As for Jermain Taylor, he would have way too much speed and power for Calzaghe. Taylor came close to beating Pavlik, who I consider a notch better than Calzaghe. Against a slower, weaker puncher like Calzaghe, Taylor would be able to win every exchange of the fight and eventually win either by a knockout or a unanimous decision. Miranda, for his part, would simply steam roll over Calzaghe and stop him with a single shot. He’d take some punishment from Calzaghe, but with Miranda’s one-punch power, he’d eventually connect with something big, and take Calzaghe out of there with a Julian Jackson type knockout.
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