Calzaghe Injures Wrist, Will Fight Jones In November

By Boxing News - 07/22/2008 - Comments

cal5733535.jpgBy Eric Thomas: In the latest boxing news, undefeated super middleweight Joe Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) injured his right wrist while training on a heavy bag for his upcoming September 20th bout with Roy Jones Jr. (52-4, 38 KOs) at Madison Square Garden, in New York City. However, the bout will go ahead anyway a month in November unless the 36 year-old Calzaghe re-injures his wrist again. According to his father, Enzo Calzaghe, who told Setanta Sports that the fight will continue and that Joe just needs a little extra time to recover from his wrist injury, which suddenly swelled up after a heavy pad workout.

Joe Calzaghe has a history of injuries usually involving his left hand rather than his right, which has caused him to postpone other bouts. However, given his history of hand injuries it makes sense for him to take the time off rather than risk taking the fight and end up fighting with only one hand and losing to Jones. Calzaghe didn’t exactly impress in his last fight against Bernard Hopkins in April, a fight that Calzaghe narrowly won by a 12-round split decision. Many boxing fans felt that it was the 43 year-old Hopkins that actually should have been awarded the fight due to his harder and cleaner landing shots in comparison to Calzaghe’s slapping shots.

As things turn out, this postponement actually works in favor of the fight, which will have more time to build up momentum before November making the fight even bigger. Goodness knows, the fight isn’t a particularly appealing fight to most boxing fans, who aren’t all that excited about the prospects of having to shell out $49.95 to watch Calzaghe face a 39 year-old Jones, who arguably left his prime behind him in the rear view mirror six long years ago. Some of the many negative critics, see this fight as a sham fight now that Jones is over-the-hill.

To be sure, a prime Jones would have likely beaten Calzaghe by a shutout, very likely stopping him in the process. Now, however, Jones is mostly limited to fights lesser fighters like Anthony Hanshaw, Prince Badi Ajamu and a shot Felix Trinidad rather against the cream of the division, which at this point would probably easily beat Jones without too much problems. However, as Calzaghe proved in his last fight, he’s no sure thing at 175 lbs, as he looked far from impressive in struggling with Hopkins.

If Calzaghe fights like he did against Hopkins, Jones may have enough left to win the fight. Then again, it would take a super human effort from Jones to do that, I think, for his work rate has taken a nose dive in recent years turning him into more of a pot shot artist rather than the fighter of old that used to throw constant blinding flurries.

It would have been a great fight if Jones and Calzaghe had met 8-9 years ago when Jones still had his blazing speed and work rate intact, but now the fight is seen as mostly a fight made for money purposes and nothing else. It will still draw well because boxing fans, especially the casual fans, will want to see Jones regardless of how he looks now. To them, it’s good enough to see him under any circumstances just so they can talk about it years from now.