By Scott Gilfoid: Well, what else is new? In an interview with the TimesOnline, Joe Calzaghe said that he felt that Chad Dawson was “on his way up,” explaining why reasoning for not fighting him. I wonder what his reasoning was for fighting a washed up 40-year-old Roy Jones Jr. If Dawson, who is the best light heavyweight in the division, isn’t ready to take on Calzaghe, then pray tell how is a faded Jones more ready than Dawson? Jones was easily defeated twice by Antonio Tarver in the past four years, while Dawson recently blanked Tarver in an embarrassingly one-sided fight.
How would that not make Dawson ready for a fight with Calzaghe? Dawson has beaten Glen Johnson and Tomasz Adamek, two of the best fighters in the sport, both better than most, if not all of Calzaghe’s prior competition in his career.
If Dawson isn’t ready, according to Calzaghe, at what point will he? Does he have to beat fighters like Mario Veit or Peter Manfredo Jr. to get a fight with Calzaghe? Or does it take nine years of fighting mediocre opponents, topping it off against a pair of faded greats? Is that what it takes to be considered ready for a fight against Calzaghe? I don’t know about you, but I smell fear.
Calzaghe also stated in the interview that it wouldn’t mean anything if he fought a rematch with Mikkel Kessler, Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr., because he had already beaten them. Sure, he beat Kessler and Jones, but I don’t call what he did with Hopkins as beating him. If anything, the fight was a win for Hopkins, not Calzaghe.
If you wanted to bend over backwards, then you could call it a draw, but certainly not a win for Calzaghe. You can’t reward a fighter for slaps when they’re getting knocked to the canvas and slugged in the mouth with power shots. I can understand not wanting to fight Kessler and Jones, though, because that certainly seems like a waste of time, but not with Hopkins.
There’s no waste of time there. That’s a fight that really needs to be made if Calzaghe was in tune with the minds of many boxing fans around the world, especially those outside of the UK. I don’t know why, but it seems as if a ton of fans from that part of the world can’t seem to see Calzaghe’s career in a rational, non-biased, insightful way.
Instead, they seem to be thickheaded about many of his fights against dreadful opponents, and ones were he won questionable decisions like in the case of his fight against Hopkins. You can’t reward a person for not fighting the best, can you?
If you did, what good would boxing be? We’d get tons of fighters craftily steering their career around to avoid the better fighters and then retiring when they’re forced to step it up against a fighter they feel they can’t beat. To me, those fighters are bad for boxing and take it down to the lowest level.
I think the reason why Calzaghe doesn’t want to fight Dawson is because Chad is too strong, skilled and talented for Calzaghe. It would be a big mismatch if the fight were to take place, with Calzaghe eating punches until he bites it. It won’t happen, though. Just looking at Dawson fight, I can only imagine how easily he would beat Calzaghe. I guess I can’t blame Calzaghe for retiring rather than having to face a guy like Dawson and end up getting beaten to a pulp.
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