If Calzaghe Retires Now, Does He Deserve To Be In The HOF?
January 10th, 2009
By Dan Ambrose: Joe Calzaghe (46-0, 32 KOs) faithfully defended his WBO super middleweight belt for 10 years, beating every mandatory challenger that was set in front of him and doing his part in creating a lasting legacy that you would think would put him in the boxing Hall of Fame. Yet while defending the WBO, which arguably wasn’t thought as highly by fans as the other belts, he fought few fighters that could be considered quality opponents – at least until the past two years of his career.
His wins over Chris Eubank, Robin Reid, Omar Sheika, Richie Woodhall, Charles Brewer, Jeff Lacy, Sakio Bika, Mikkel Kessler, Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. would qualify as his best victories of his career. Yet the fights against Eubank, Hopkins and Jones can almost immediately be disqualified due to the age of the fighters at the time that Calzaghe fought them.
Calzaghe beat him badly, but since that time the victory has been made less special as Lacy has struggled in beating lower quality opposition and was recently soundly beaten by Jermain Taylor. As such, the win over Lacy can probably be removed as well from the list of Calzaghe’s accomplishments.
It doesn’t mean as much when one sees Lacy struggling against marginal opposition and getting beaten to a pulp by other fighters. That leaves Kessler and the other four fighters as Calzaghe’s best opponents during his career.
At this point in his career, it’s probably too early to tell how good Kessler is as a fighter, because he’s mostly fought European fodder and has yet to face quality fighters from elsewhere around the world. Calzaghe’s win, a close 12-round decision, is solid victory but it’s not clear how impressive it is because we don’t know how good Kessler is as of yet.
Let’s just say that we’ll have to wait and see on that fight. But as far as the other fighters go, I don’t see them as being the type of fighters that would win my vote for putting Calzaghe into the Hall of Fame. I mean, they’re certainly capable fighters and had decent careers, but not the kind of fighters that I would put on the level of other top fighters in this day and age like Carl Froch, Chad Dawson, Taylor, and Lucian Bute.
Those are the kind of victories I’m looking for on Calzaghe’s record if I were to give him my vote, and unfortunately, I don’t see them on his record. The other wins are fine, but more for an average fighter than a truly exceptional fighter like a Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard, fighters that proved themselves against the best throughout their careers. Calzaghe still has time to fight or all of those fighters if he wanted to, because he’s still young enough to do it.
Tags: 24 Responses to “If Calzaghe Retires Now, Does He Deserve To Be In The HOF?”
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Mark i dont understand your point. What do uyou mean by Lacy isnt the same. didnt you read the article it said Lacy’s unproven. You make it sound like Lacy a great boxer whos old and has fallen off hes 31 with 26 fights and the only names u recognize are his 2 losses, he should retire and look for a new occupation. And i doubt you could name anyone on Kesslers resume worth mentioning. Calzaghe outworked an old Jones and Hopkins, he barely beat Hopkins and did land some good shots on Jones only because his defense isnt as solid as Hopkins. I dont think the outcome would have been the same 8-10 years ago.
Irrespective of what the american ‘experts’ on here think Joe will be inducted into the HOF the first time he is eligible as was Lennox Lewis this year. Six years I think.
So six years from now you can write an ‘article’ about how Calzaghe didn’t deserve to be inducted as he wasn’t american *cough* I mean ‘didn’t beat anyone’. You know what? It won’t make a shred of difference.
calzaghe is a great fighter its his fault lacy isnt tha same kesslers a quality fighter and you can see that he had unifed belts and has got a belt back now even hopkinsi think is in the best shape of his life beating pavlik and lets not forget calzaghe isnt exactly young himself he mite not win looking good all the time but its better to win ugly than to lose prety so with out a doubt he deserves the hall of fame
Yes i may not be the biggest calzaghe fan but you’ve gotta be an idiot to think otherwise. He’s beaten all the fighters that the americans have given to him and he’s got the record for the most title defences, and he’s never dodged anyone and look at his record.
If ur goin to think in this way then u could rubbish the record of every fighter that has ever boxed! as for dawson, froch, taylor, non have proved themselves to be world class and are simply in a building phase whereas calzaghe is world class and has nothing to gain by fighting them! I dont c any calls for non-british fighters to fight lesser fighters! This site seems to constantlt bad mouth british fighters. Calzaghe, hatton and haye are all put down at every chance!
Adam knows nothing about nothing, what an completely ignorant comment to make – the yanks a seriously jelous that they haven’t got a undefeated champ like Calzaghe, no respect for a patron of the sport.
he is sooooo overated if he fought either hopkins or jones in there day he would of been in big trouble he hid in europe for a decade watchin all the real fighters get old he is a joke
I agree that his record speaks for itself.He’s fought ablolutely nobody.
Calzaghe is a legend… all you yanks just hate it that we brits STILL have a true unbeaten champ.. Mayweather jr is world class but Calzaghe is far-far greater than any current boxer in the US (excluding flyod). You player haters can say what you like but the record speaks for itself, If he was wearing stars and stripes he’d be in THOF already…
yes. his record speaks for itself.
if arrogant american fighters grew some nuts and came out of their backyards to face the european or occasionaly gave the european fighters like calzaghe and particularly kessler, a shot, then you would no longer have this argument that theses fighters have never fought anyone.
its because the fearful big name americans dont want to take the risk, that europeans like calzaghe and kessler only have poor names on their records
No,Calzaghe shouldn’t be put in the Hall of f
Fame.His only notable win was against Kessler.His record is filled with nobodies and way past their prime boxers.I think Calzaghe should fight for 3 or 4 more years and take on every boxer that he can.If he fights(without dodging like he’s been doing)and shows that he will take on everybody and anybody.Regardless if he losses a couple(which is what i think will happen)i think he will be deserving of the HOF.Right now he’s just dodged to many people.
Well said james!!!!!!!
What a waste of time writing this article, S**t for brains of course he does
you say he only fought european fodder and should have else where in the world… by that u mean america right because you lot only think america exists half of you have never even left your own country so i dont blame u that you only think america exists ha ha ….. where should he have fought thats else where then, the north pole australia, japan maybe, no u mean america, oh yeah i forgot he did fight in america and he won……………
What difference would a fight with Chad Dawson make? If Calzaghe beat him he would just be yet another unproven fighter blah blah blah….so it goes on……
I agree with ukandsodoff Calzaghe should have unified belts and done a bit more but he never.
To cement his legacy he could go on and try to beat rocky marciano’s undefeated record but It seems to me that Calzaghe has fallen out of love with the sport, especially with all his negative comments about other boxers recently.
Maybe he feels a little bitter about the fact he has beaten the legends but that he beat them at a late stage in their career and therefore is still NOT getting the recognition he deserves.
If this bothers him he should fight on while he can, if not then he should just retire.
I personally hope he fights on but the question is what does he have left to prove? That Michael lieberman and Scott Gilfoid don’t have a clue? I think we already know that.
Im British and like Calzaghe but i try to remain unbiased and honest about things.
1st of all if you go a decade as champion then why were unifications not made for more belts?
I tihnk the Kessler fight was his best ever win, followed by Hopkins. Kessler is a top quality fighter whose mainly being ducked becuase hes so good yet brings average purse. Hopkins age only comes into it if his age is showin and it aint.
Jones was well shot and doesnt really count for much in my opinion.
I have to be honest and say i would understand if he didnt make it into the hall of fame. He didnt move up and down weights facing the best of those divisions and he didnt fight super fight sfter super fight when in his prime.
course he should be in the hall of fame. He is a great fighter who has never lost. Lesser fighters will be inducted when they have lost to poor opposition, but because JC is not a yank he will get criticised by some sections of the U.S fans, but thats nature. He has alot of good wins with a couple of great thrown in.
Calzaghe is an overrated fraud!! he doesnt belong nowhere near the a HOF
There’s no one to fight with… he should retire and bring with him his undefeated record back to Britain, coz for me there’s no juice within his padded Legacy. if only he fought those top best guys in their era it will be a different scenario; he might have 43-4-28 record and all those four defeats would probably go against TRINIDAD, JONES, HOPKINS and DELA HOYA.
Anyway that was just the probability of it, that comes into different way. His one heck of a Lucky,Smart guy. so give him credit.
I love Calzaghe but I want him to fight a few of those guys and destroy them so everyone will shut there mouth about this!
Big D
If only Roy fought Calzaghe in his prime maybe just maybe it would be Jones’s win via knockout. Though I still respect Joe for his brilliance and I love him to be in the Hall of Fame someday.
But still I don’t like his style.LOL
Joe isnt much younger than hopkins or roy jones, so if he can beat them now then the chances of him beating them 10 years ago surely must have been good????
I don’t think that the Bernard Hopkins win should exactly be ‘disqualified’, given that Hopkins was obviously still a very capable fighter when he fought Calzaghe.
His age will obviously raise eyebrows when records are looked upon by later generations, but Hopkins has clearly aged very well – not many 40-something fighters could come back from a loss and then crush a young, capable (if no exceptional) boxer like Kelly Pavlik.
Fair enough as far as Roy Jones is concerned, even Jones himself probably didn’t give himself much chance at that age (his style being quite perfectly unsuited to longevity), but certainly Hopkins is still today a formidable fighter.
As for the Hall Of Fame business, although Calzaghe can’t really be ranked with the all-time greats, his record alone warrants his inclusion, and I would be quite surprised if he was overlooked.