By William MacKay: In the latest boxing news, five-time world champion boxer Roy Jones Jr. (52-4, 38 KOs) is saying that he’ll be fighting Joe Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) likely in September, and that the fight will possibly be taking place in Las Vegas rather than Calzaghe’s native Wales. This bout will be Calzaghe’s last fight, as he’s decided to skip over the idea of facing undefeated middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik, who Calzaghe feels isn’t up to his level. As things work out, Calzaghe’s decision to end with only the Jones fight leaves pretty much all of his boxing fans greatly disappointed, for they wanted to see him fight the power-punching Pavlik, who is considered by many to be the best fighter in the middleweight division bar none.
The decision to fight Jones rather than Pavlik is especially bad, in that it makes Calzaghe look more than a little afraid to many people in the boxing community. Worse, however, is Calzaghe’s excuses to try and explain it away, suggesting that Pavlik would only lose if they fought and that he’s not up to his level, all of which seem rather evasive, as if he’s hiding the real reason why he’s not interested in fighting Pavlik.
I think for most people, they’d have a lot more respect for Calzaghe if he came straight out and said, Hey, I don’t want to fight Pavlik, because he’s too young, strong and would probably beat me at this late stage in my career. After all, he’s 10 years younger than me. At least by saying that, Calzaghe would be truthful with people and they could respect him more, even though not liking his lack of courage, than at present in which many people feel lied to my him.
As far as Calzaghe’s decision to fight the 39 year-old Jones, this also looks bad because of the fact that Jones is perceived as being totally shot, not the same fighter he was earlier in his career. Most people would give Calzaghe very little chance to beat a prime Jones, who would be much too fast and powerful for the light-hitting Calzaghe to beat, which makes it all the worse that Calzaghe has waited until this point in Jones’ career to try and fight him.
It makes it seem as if Calzaghe waited him out, deciding on fighting him only after Jones had reached the point where his boxing skills had eroded sufficiently enough to take the fight without much risk. I personally could understand this fight if it had occurred, say six or more years ago, but for it to happen now, with Jones having lost three out of his last six fights, it seems ridiculous now for the fight to take place. For Calzaghe, however, he has said that he wants to make as much money as he can before he gets out, having fought much of his career in mostly small fights against relatively obscure European fighters.
Some of the blame for not making money earlier in his boxing career rests entirely on his shoulders, for he had to have known by staying and fighting exclusively in Europe, which is where almost all of his fights have taken place, he would be limiting the amount of money he could make. Now, however, with countless opportunities presenting themselves to him against top American fighters like Pavlik, Calzaghe has instead opted to take the easy money and fight Jones, and then get out of the sport.
That’s particularly sad, for he still is fighting at the top of his game and isn’t showing signs of slowing down despite his advanced age of 36. In truth, he probably could go one fighting at this level for another 3-4 years, possibly a little more than that, which is what makes it seem odder that he’s decided to up and quit now that many of the top American fighters want to fight him.
With the way he’s fighting, Calzaghe probably could easily run the table, fighting Jones, Pavlik, Sergio Mora, Oscar De La Hoya, Arthur Abraham, Antonio Tarver and Chad Dawson in the next couple of years. In doing so, he could really establish a lasting legacy that he’s been so badly chasing after. Short of that, a fight against Pavlik would almost nearly do the track and would go a long way in shutting up his many critics.
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