By Aaron Klein: While Joe Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) continues to try and talk up the talent of his opponent Roy Jones Jr., who will supposedly be his last fight of his career on November 8th at New York’s Madison Square Garden, many in the boxing world aren’t so enamored by this fight and see it as merely Calzaghe cashing out of the sport the easy way in order to avoid more dangerous fighters like Kelly Pavlik or one of his many talented challengers to his WBO super middleweight title. Rather than have to continue to defend his WBO title, Calzaghe yesterday gave it up after 11 years.

It was an incredible length of time to hold a title, to be sure, but unfortunately Calzaghe had few real tests during the entire eleven years as a champion with which to build his legacy. In fact, an argument can be made that out of the entire time that he held the title, he only had a handful of decent opponents to fight - Mikkel Kessler, Jeff Lacy, Robin Reid and Richie Woodhall. Most, however, weren’t the type that would impress the average boxing fan unfortunately. This is one of the reasons why Calzaghe’s recent decision to retire after a final bout against the 39 year-old Jones has been criticized so heavily by many fans and writers alike. Although Calzaghe is saying that Jones is a good opponent, that he can still fight and isn’t shot, it’s hard for many people to fall in line with that belief considering the evidence to the contrary.

Jones hasn’t exactly shined in the past four years, and has lost three out of his last six bouts against good opponents. Because of this, it would seem strange that Calzaghe would choose him rather than an unbeaten Kelly Pavlik, whom he says is unproven despite the fact that Pavlik has already beaten Jermain Taylor twice, Edison Miranda and Calzaghe’s fellow countryman Gary Lockett with ease. From the looks of it, Calzaghe seems to be taking the easy route against the lesser threat of Jones rather than risk his unbeaten record against a dangerous fighter like Pavlik.

In doing so, however, Calzaghe appears to be taking away from his boxing legacy by taking the path of least resistance. While Calzaghe may feel that he’s accomplished a lot during his career by holding onto his WBO title for such a lengthy amount of time, the fact remains that he fought few fighters, from what I can see, that are really worthy of being considered as good opponents. For the most part, you can throw out 95% of all of Calzaghe’s opponents during his run as a WBO champion, and really only come up with his fights with Kessler, Lacy and Reid as his only real live opponents.

As for his non-title fight against Bernard Hopkins last April, that fight did little to enhance Calzaghe’s legacy given the fact that Hopkins was 43 at the time, and he appeared to fight Calzaghe to a standstill. Indeed, the fight probably should have been ruled a draw, with no real clear winner emerging between the two of them. That fight probably did a lot of damage to those who feel that Calzaghe has an impeccable career, because when you factor that fight in with all of the marginal opponents that Calzaghe faced during his career, it would seem to indicate that he was never the real deal as a champion.

This is why it seems likely that Calzaghe will be doing himself no favors should he immediately retire after facing Jones on November 8th. The fight to begin with isn’t particularly appealing, the kind of fight that would increase Calzaghe’s worth as a fighter given Jones’ fading skills. With Pavlik out there as a better choice, that would seem to have been the fighter that Calzaghe should have chosen as his last fight.

If he could care less about his legacy, then fine, I’d say go ahead and take the fight with Jones and then get out of the sport. However, if he’s concerned with finishing his career on a strong note, and trying to add a good name to his resume, Calzaghe really needed to fight Pavlik. I personally think that Calzaghe is wasting his time with fighting Jones, because it does the opposite of what he wants and tends to give ammunition for those who feel that Calzaghe is avoiding Pavlik. Calzaghe probably could have gotten away with it if he had faced better opponents during his career, however, but unfortunately much of the fighters that he fought up until now have been pretty ordinary, the type that many fighters could still be unbeaten if they had fought.

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