By Michael Lieberman: Undefeated super middleweight Joe Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) has had a stellar career, beating a variety of fighters some good and many not so good, but on November 8th barring another injury delay by Calzaghe, he’ll be facing easily the best opponent of his career in 39 year-old Roy Jones Jr. (52-4, 38 KOs) at the Madison Square Garden, in New York City, New York. Ignore for a second the age and recent losses by Jones, he’s got more than enough talent to beat the likes of Calzaghe. Jones, perhaps the best pure boxer that has come through the sport in the past half century, is a six-time world champion boxer with title wins in four different weight classes and previously held one title or another for 11 consecutive years fighting the best in the world over that time.
In contrast, Calzaghe has also held a title for 11 years, although against much lesser quality opposition. Indeed, up until the twilight of his career Calzaghe has faced mostly good B-quality fighters and few, if any, fighters that could seriously be considered coming anywhere close to A-quality. Jones has faced the likes of a prime Bernard Hopkins (and beaten him decisively), Felix Trinidad, Antonio Tarver, Reggie Johnson, Glen Johnson, Montell Griffin, Montell Griffin, Virgil Hill, Lou Del Valle, Otis Grant, Mike McCallum and Eric Lucas and looked good against most of them.
With Calzaghe, somehow avoided facing good quality fighters like this, and instead fought mostly obscure fighters from Europe until 2006 when he took on Jeff Lacy, arguably his best opponent of his career.
With one look at the two fighter’s records, it’s clear that Jones has the much better body of work against top fighters. This leaves one with the question, if Calzaghe had to struggle tooth and nail to defeat a 43 year-old Hopkins, how good is Calzaghe? I personally don’t buy the excuses about his age being the reason why he struggled against Hopkins, because Calzaghe looked and fought pretty much like he always has. The only thing that changed was his level of opposition, not his ability. When put in with a tough fighter with talent, all of a sudden Calzaghe looked fallible instead of his usual unbeatable self. Let there be no mistake about it, Hopkins wasn’t in the same class as Jones during his prime, and in fact lost in a convincing manner.
While Jones clearly isn’t the same fighter he was back then, he’s only lost a little in terms of overall hand speed and reflexes. His recent loses in 2004 and 2005, all three of them, were more of a product of his dramatic weight loss after his moving back down from the heavyweight division after defeating John Ruiz to win the World Boxing Association heavyweight title in March 2003. It wasn’t the smartest of moves for Jones to quickly takeoff weight, some 25 pounds, to move back down to the light heavyweight division to face Tarver, who took him out in a 2nd round TKO in May 2004.
Jones, though, after losing twice more has finally adjusted to the weight loss and regained his muscle mass that he lost in his foolish move take weight off. To prove that he’s back in full form, Jones has won his last three fights, defeating Prince Badi Ajamu, Anthony Hanshaw and Trinidad. The speed, the power and the quick ring movements are back and looks like nothing has changed from his previous 90s form.
Calzaghe will have to deal with someone that is not only larger than him and used to carrying the 175 pound weight, but also a fighter faster than himself. This is something that Calzaghe will have problems adjusting to. He’s always been the faster fighter than his over-matched European opponents, but what will he do when he’s forced to finally face someone even faster than himself. Unless I miss my guess, he’s going to take a major beating and end up being embarrassed in front of the entire world.
Calzaghe has said that this will be his last fight if he wins. I guess it’s not going to be his last fight then, because he won’t be winning or looking good. His legacy, of course, will be trash after this fight and no amount of fights he can have after this will erase the sting of the loss. Like I’ve said before, I already see him as having a loss on his record because Hopkins should have been given the win over him. Not it will be official after Jones takes care of him.
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