If Calzaghe’s Girl Friend Wants Him To Quit, Maybe He Should

By Boxing News - 01/27/2009 - Comments

cal452454545By Nate Anderson: Apparently Joe Calzaghe’s girl friend wants him to get out of boxing and retire from the sport. According to Walesonline.co.uk, Calzaghe’s girl friend wanted him to retire after his fight with Roy Jones Jr. November. However, Calzaghe seems frozen at this point, unable to make a decision whether to stay or go into retirement. The latest word is that he wants to fight one more time possibly against Bernard Hopkins, Winky Wright or Chad Dawson, but it’s still unknown whether he’ll actually fight any of them. If Calzaghe is serious about retiring soon, these fights would be a tough bout to go out on because Calzaghe would need to be there mentally 100% to win.

Hopkins is an opponent that I had doubts that Calzaghe would ever want to fight again because of the tremendous hassle that took place not only in the fight but before the fight with him. In fighting him again, it would be probably just as bad as the first time and maybe a tougher fight because Hopkins seems to have improved since their last fight on April 19th, 2008.

Hopkins, 44, defeated middleweight Kelly Pavlik by a 12-round decision in October and is sky high right now in terms of confidence. Calzaghe could accomplish a lot in defeating him a second time and likely sealing his legacy with another good win over the aging veteran.

However, Calzaghe may not get full credit for beating him due to Hopkins’s age. Beating someone as old as Hopkins opens oneself up to all kinds of criticism, so much so that it’s almost not worth fighting someone that old in the first place. Unless Calzaghe is badly in need of money, I wouldn’t advise him to fight Hopkins a second time. It’s probably not worth the effort.

It’s obvious what Hopkins will do in the fight. He’ll hold often, trying to slow down the work rate because he can’t hope to match the punch output of Calzaghe and turn the fight into another ugly affair where the punches will have to be interpreted by the judges. Calzaghe, like last time, will land much more often, but Hopkins will land the harder shots.

If Calzaghe is to fight anyone, he should go after Dawson, the IBF light heavyweight champion. He’s not nearly as well known as Hopkins, but he’s probably a better fighter than Bernard at this point and easily the best fighter in the division. He recently trounced Antonio Tarver in 2008, making him look like a C-level fighter at times. That gives you a good indication of how talented Dawson is.

At 6’3”, Dawson would have a big size advantage over Calzaghe and would probably be little faster and more powerful than him as well. This would be a very tough test for Calzaghe to win, because he couldn’t just wade in on Dawson like he does against other fighters and try to overwhelm him with punches.

In that circumstance, Dawson would flurry on Calzaghe with power shots even greater than Hopkins, except that Dawson would be landing massive amounts of punches instead of an occasional big shot the way that Hopkins was fighting.

There would be a big danger that Calzaghe might not only lose but be knocked out in the process. If his interest is saving his face from punishment, then he shouldn’t take this fight, because he’ll get hit a lot in the face and possibly get cut or suffer a broken nose.



Comments are closed.