By Scott Gilfoid: I got to say I’m positively sick of hearing about whether Joe Calzaghe has made up his mind or not about retiring from boxing. I was hoping that he would man up and show some courage and fight a live opponent for a change like Carl Froch, Chad Dawson or Jermain Taylor but it looks like that isn’t going to be happening.
Now with him just lingering without making a decision, Calzaghe is causing endless speculation about what he’s going to do. To me, it’s an easy decision. Take the fight with Dawson. It’s the smart fight and one that would partially repair some of the lower quality fights that Calzaghe has taken throughout much of his career. I doubt he will, though.
Dawson, 26, the IBF light heavyweight champion, is even faster than Calzaghe and with much more power. If you thought Calzaghe had problems against Hopkins, just wait and see what would happen to him if he were to step in the ring with Dawson.
Like I said, it’s the fight that Calzaghe badly needs to cement his legacy but it’s the one that he probably won’t take. Quitting is the easy thing to do and would certainly shield Calzaghe from any risks, but by doing while he’s still fighting well is, at least to me, a cop out – an escape from what he needs to do.
So what if he takes a beating? It’s part of boxing and it’s not like his unbeaten record isn’t already unblemished as it is. The Hopkins fight did that, as did the huge amount of fluff fighters that Calzaghe has faced during his career.
Taking away the soft opponents and the fighters that were clearly over the hill by the time that Calzaghe fought them, he’s probably fought only a two good opponents during his career. This is more the reason why Calzaghe needs to get it over with and either take the fight with Dawson or Froch or quit already and have done with it.
For better that than to see him drag this out any further and fighting Roy Jones Jr. again in a rematch. That’s what I think he’s going to do. He probably won’t retire knowing that he can still make a bundle by fighting a low-risk opponent like Jones and again and get a good payday. He’ll be ridiculed for it, of course, but since when did that stop him from fighting less than stellar opponents? If Calzaghe takes that route, he might as well keep going because there’s plenty of other shot fighters out there that he can pad his record on, someone like Oscar De La Hoya. Add a couple of more and he’d get to the magical 50-0 mark and put him in a special class in boxing.
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