By Jonny Rashman Joe Calzaghe is a world class fighter, is unbeaten and one of the longest reigning world champions in the history of boxing, yet still boxing experts won’t give him the credit he deserves. It is only recently that Calzaghe is being treated like a superstar, even though he is 45 and 0, with 32 knockouts. While good fighters like Kelly Pavlik are talked about more highly than Calzaghe, why is that? Before Calzaghe destroyed Jeff Lacey, none of the world class fighters wanted to fight Calzaghe because there was not enough money involved to take the risk to fight Calzaghe, considering that there was a good chance they would get beat. All of a sudden these top class fighters are coming to the end of their careers and have been beaten in recent years, so they need Calzaghe now.
Going back six years ago, it was Calzaghe who needed them to prove how world class he is. How things have changed. It’s like anything in life, why would you give someone a chance who wouldn’t give you a chance? In the case of Calzaghe, he has to give these people a chance to fight him because at the end of the day he wants to fight the best fighters to prove to the rest of the world how good he is. Joe Calzaghe is unbeaten, and ok, granted he has not fought many world class fighters. That’s not his fault. If it was up to him, Joe would fight them every day of the week, but he still has had 45 fights and in all of those fights he has kept his concentration. You ask any fighter, that is hard to do as one mistake can lead to you being knocked out.
All this rubbish of Calzaghe being scared of Pavlik and even being scared to have a rematch with Hopkins, is as a joke. Joe didn’t want to fight Pavlik because there wasn’t as much money as fighting Roy Jones. Why should he not take the biggest pay day at this late stage of his career? Most people would. If you are unbeaten, you deserve the biggest pay day, and besides, fighting Roy Jones will not be as easy as most experts think.
A 39 years-old Roy Jones is still better than most boxers who are around at the moment. Kelly Pavlik is a good fighter who can bang. He is not world class like Calzaghe. Why should Calzaghe fight Hopkins again? Hopkins is a real legend a world class fighter who I respect, but the fact is, even though he destroyed a poor Kelly Pavlik, he is not as good as he was 7 years ago. He can’t keep up with Joe’s work rate and he will tire and clinch at every opportunity in the later rounds.
People don’t want to see that. The fact is Joe Calzaghe is underrated. Ok, he hasn’t fought the best fighters at their best, but if you put him against any of the middleweights in any era, he will give them a run for their money. He is one of the best boxers Briton has ever produced.
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