Will Calzaghe’s Victory Over Jones Be An Empty One?

By Boxing News - 11/08/2008 - Comments

Image: Will Calzaghe's Victory Over Jones Be An Empty One?By Scott Gilfoid: Tonight, Joe Calzaghe makes what will likely be an empty gesture by in all probability defeating an age depleted Roy Jones Jr. at the Madison Square Garden, in New York City, New York. If there’s any good that can come out of this fight, and believe me, I can’t find much, it’s that Calzaghe will be retiring immediately after. At least then, we will be spared any further legacy building fights against faded fighters in or near their 40s like Jones presently is. At 36, Calzaghe has had enough of boxing, he says, and wants to get out of it with his looks intact.

The timing of the retirement comes at an odd time, just when he’s being pursued by a number of good fighters like Bernard Hopkins, Mikkel Kessler – both of whom he beat by close decisions – Chad Dawson and Kelly Pavlik. Calzaghe is choosing instead to wrap up his career against Jones rather than them, and because of that taking a lot of static from boxing experts. Having fought most of his career against less than impressive fighters, it has only been recently that Calzaghe has stepped up the level of his competition in squeaking out victories over Kessler and Hopkins.

But in this case, Calzaghe has struggled and looked very beatable against both of them. For a fighter that has grown accustomed to breezing through soft opposition in Europe, this has been a big departure for him. Indeed, in many of his fights, Calzaghe often hardly received as much as a scratch from his badly over-matched opponents.

Now, however, he’s having to work hard, take a lot of punishment, and scrape by with close decision wins. By many accounts, Calzaghe lost the fight to Hopkins but was the beneficiary of a gift decision over the aging veteran. As ugly as the fight was, I personally had Hopkins winning the fight by a comfortable margin in the end.

Given the hard nature of these fights, it was perhaps inevitable that Calzaghe would choose to retire rather than be forced to fight further hard bouts like this. It isn’t a question of him having lost anything because he strangely appears to be defying his age, and is still fighting at the top of his game.

The difference, it seems, is that he’s now taking on top quality fighters who are pushing him to his limit in order to get the victory. This is what makes his fight against Jones, as well as his promise of retirement, very disappointing. Calzaghe could have done much better than this.

His retirement in the face of a lot of unfinished business, makes it appear to some boxing fans that he’s running from fighters and is afraid to lose. Additionally, his choice of Jones, who has lost three out of his last six fights and hasn’t beaten a top level opponent in ages, makes Calzaghe look bad because if Jones’ fading ability.

What can be gained with a victory over Jones at this point? Not much if you listen to many fans. Some people are calling it a fake fight, more of an exhibition bout than a real fight. It doesn’t help that Jones is now starting to look his age (near 40), and with the addition of his beard, looks little like the youthful Jones that we all knew in the past.

It’s hard to imagine that the fight will be anything other than a one-sided beat down for Calzaghe, even under the best of circumstances. The long and short of the matter is that this fight is a poor way for Calzaghe to step away from boxing.

It would be fine for non-title bout in between title defenses, but not as a career-ending fight for him. This is why Calzaghe will continue to take heat long after he tires, and perhaps diminishing much of what he accomplished in retiring undefeated.



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