By Scott Gilfoid: In looking at Joe Calzaghe’s recent retirement from boxing, it seems rather odd that he chose the time that he did to hang up the gloves. At the time that Calzaghe retired, he said that he had accomplished all there was in boxing and there were no more appealing fights for him. In selecting fighters like Peter Manfredo Jr., Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr, it looks as if Calzaghe was doing a little bit of cherry picking in his last years of the sport.
I have no problem with a bit of cherry picking when it’s in moderation, but when the cherry picking becomes a habit, then it’s a problem for me.
For the last year of Calzaghe’s career, Chad Dawson quickly emerged on the light heavyweight scene and established himself as the fighter considered to be the best in the division. Now when Calzaghe said there were no other fighters for him to fight, since he’d already beaten great ones like Manfredo and Mario Veit, he left without fighting Chad Dawson.
The retirement of Calzaghe seemed peculiar in his timing, because the logical thing for Calzaghe to have done would have to step up and face Dawson, since Calzaghe had fought Hopkins, who many people feel would lose to Dawson.
Now if Calzaghe wanted to help boxing, since he had said previously that boxing is a dying sport, then Calzaghe could have given the sport a big boost by fighting Dawson, don’t you think? Can you imagine the reaction that the boxing world would have had if Calzaghe had stayed and fought Chad Dawson rather than the 40-year-old Roy Jones Jr. or the 43-year-old Hopkins.
Calzaghe would have been given a lot of praise, because he would have been taking a risky fight that he would have probably badly, but ultimately earned a lot of respect in doing so. The problem is Calzaghe didn’t fight him, and chose to retire rather than face Dawson.
That’s too bad, because Calzaghe’s resume seems to cry out for a fighter like Dawson to give Calzaghe some substance. Apart from a fight over a faded Chris Eubank, Hopkins, Jones, Mikkel Kessler, Sakio Bika and Jeff Lacy, there’s not a lot of quality fighters in Calzaghe’s resume that makes it stand out from the resume of Dawson.
As the saying goes, action speaks louder than words. When Calzaghe was opting to fight the likes of Manfredo, Jones and Hopkins, he could have really done himself a world of good had he fought Dawson. Why Calzaghe didn’t fight Dawson is a mystery to me. Was Calzaghe afraid of Dawson, is that it?
I guess I couldn’t blame Calzaghe if he were afraid to fight Dawson, since Chad is clearly the best fighter in the planet at light heavyweight with better power, hand speed, foot movement and size than Calzaghe. For Calzaghe to go into a fight against a power hitter like Dawson, hoping to win by slapping him down would be an almost an insane move by Calzaghe, one that would have almost surely failed against the young American star.
I hate to say it, but I think Calzaghe would have been destroyed in three or four rounds. I don’t know..Maybe it was better that Calzaghe chose to not fight Dawson, because if he had there’s a good chance it would have been ugly for Calzaghe with him losing either by a lopsided decision or a knockout.
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