By Scott Gilfoid: Joe Calzaghe (46-0, 32 KOs) did what few other fighters have done before him by retiring undefeated after a 15-year professional boxing career. He did it, there’s no mistake about that, but he did it against some of the weakest opponents I’ve seen a champion fight in my life. Calzaghe ended up wasting a lot of his career facing soft opponents like Mario Veit and Tocker Pudwill when he should have been fighting Nigel Benn, Julian Jackson, Gerald McClellan, a young Roy Jones Jr. and Bernard Hopkins.
Instead, Calzaghe chose to defend his WBO title over and over again against fighters like Rick Thornberry, Will McIntyre and Miguel Angel Jimenez, to name just a few of the obscure names that Calzaghe defended his title against.
Have you heard of these guys? I know I haven’t. This is why I see Calzaghe’s boxing career as being essentially a carbon copy duplicate of German Seven Ottke (34-0, 6 KOs), who retired in 2004 after successfully defending his IBF super middleweight title 21 times against mostly soft competition over a six year period.
Calzaghe should have stepped up on his hind legs and forced a fight against Jackson, McClellan, Jones and Hopkins. He didn’t and instead waited until the end of his career to finally fight 40ish Jones and Hopkins, neither of which were the same fighters they had been earlier in their career.
Calzaghe had a chance to make up for his lack of what I consider to be quality opposition in his career by facing Chad Dawson. Instead, Calzaghe chose to retire. I think that frankly sucks! He should have stuck around and taken his loss to Dawson like a man and let Chad show what real talent is.
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