By John Kelvin: Joe Calzaghe is regarded by most fans and media as the greatest super middleweight of all time and an all time great fighter in general due to his 46-0 record. However on closer inspection of Calzaghe’s record he does not appear to be that great a fighter.
Calzaghe won his first title in 1997 against a faded past his best Chris Eubank and held the title for 10 years making 21 successful defenses in the process. That is an impressive number of defenses but who were those successful defenses against? Calzaghe’s first five defenses are as follows: Branko Sobot, Juan Gimenez, Robin Reid, Rick Thornberry and David Starrie.
What have any of these fighters, with the exception of Reid ever accomplished at world level? Before facing Jeff Lacy, Calzaghe made title defenses against Mger Mkrtchyan, Kabary Salem, Evans Ashira and Mario Veit who Calzaghe had previously defeated by first round stoppage. Again what have any of these fighters achieved at championship level? When Calzaghe was finally in a big fight against Jeff Lacy he boxed well and won every round to win another title belt.
However, Lacy was an over-hyped fighter whose lack of overall boxing skills and head movement were badly exposed in the fight. Calzaghe then defeated Sakio Bika and Peter Manfredo before setting up a fight with fellow champion Mikkel Kessler. Kessler was and still is a world class fighter but Calzaghe after losing the early rounds took over the fight by the halfway stage and defeated the Dane by unanimous decision to be crowned undisputed champion in his final fight at super middleweight.
In ten years as a super middleweight, Calzaghe could only defeat one credible opponent in Kessler, this hardly makes him a great fighter. If his division was so devoid of challenges he should have moved up to light heavyweight sooner to test himself against a still prime Roy Jones, Antonio Tarver, Glen Johnson or Bernard Hopkins when he first moved up from middleweight. When Calzaghe did eventually move up to 175lbs he was floored in the 1st round by Bernard Hopkins but managed to capture a close and controversial split decision win.
Calzaghe won the fight through work rate, he somehow impressed the judges by throwing punches but not not landing them whereas all the clean and effective work was done by Hopkins. In his final fight, Calzaghe defeated Roy Jones who despite coming off a win over Felix Trinidad was badly past his prime and had been knocked out in two of his recent losses. How does this level of opposition qualify Calzaghe as a great fighter?
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