By Scott Gilfoid: I can’t say I was surprised to hear that Joe Calzaghe wasn’t interested in coming out of retirement for a rematch with Bernard Hopkins. Apparently, Golden Boy Promotions chief executive Richard Schaefer had hopes of luring Calzaghe out of retirement for a match against Hopkins, who badly wants a shot at avenging his 12-round split decision loss to Calzaghe in April 2008.
Who can blame Hopkins? After all, a huge portion of the people who saw the fight in the U.S felt that Hopkins had won the fight and was a victim of a bad decision. In keeping with his no rematch policy of not giving his opponents rematches, unless their name is Mario Veit, Calzaghe isn’t interested in coming out of retirement to face Hopkins.
I wonder if his inconclusive results from last time made his decision easier. He probably didn’t like the idea of having to mix it up twice with someone that in many people’s eyes beat him last time around. To get lucky twice would be next to a miracle and chances are the judges’ would get the verdict right next time around and give Hopkins the rightful decision victory.
In an article at the South Wales Argus, “I have beaten Bernard Hopkins once, it wasn’t a great fight and styles make fights and he came to hold and to spoil, rather than to execute as his nickname suggests.”
I don’t know about Calzaghe, but I thought the fight was great, especially where Hopkins knocked Calzaghe on his backside in the 1st round. Throughout the 12 round bout, Hopkins landed the much better shots whereas Calzaghe was limited to mostly slapping the entire time. Calzaghe out landed Hopkins, but the punches weren’t even landing with the front of the glove because of all the slapping Calzaghe was doing in the fight.
As a judge, there’s no way I could have scored 80% of Calzaghe’s punches on that night. If it was a slap fight and that was the rules, sure, Calzaghe would have won the fight, but this wasn’t that kind of fight.
Although Calzaghe says he’s not interested in coming out of retirement, I think he will if an easy enough fight comes across him. I can see him coming out of retirement for a fight against someone badly over the hill like Oscar De La Hoya or a fight against someone a lot smaller than him like Ricky Hatton. Other than that, no way will he be back to fight Hopkins or an even better fighter like Chad Dawson. It just won’t happen.
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