By William Mackay: Recently, I read an article by a writer that seemed to be gloating about the fact that former World Boxing Organization super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe had beaten both Roy Jones Jr. and Bernard Hopkins during his career. The writer of the article fails to mention that Hopkins was 43 at the time he fought Calzaghe while Jones was a ripe 39-years-old. Calzaghe ended up winning a controversial 12 round split decision over Hopkins in their April 2008 fight, a bout that could very well have gone the other way.

The outcome really doesn’t matter much to me, but what does matter is how badly Calzaghe struggled against the 43-year-old Hopkins. To be sure, Calzaghe was getting up there in age himself at the time that he fought both Hopkins and Jones. Calzaghe was 36 at the time he fought them both. However, Calzaghe was still fighting at a very high level and appeared to have lost very little of his abilities despite his advanced age at the time of those fights.

I think Calzaghe was pretty much the same fighter he was in his earlier years of his career. If anything, Calzaghe probably was a better fighter at this point because he had finally started to step it up in terms of the level of his competition during the latter part of his career. From 1993 to 2006, perhaps the best opponents that Calzaghe faced during that time period was Miguel Angel Jimenez, Byron Mitchell, Charles Brewer, Richie Woodhall, Omar Sheika, Mario Veit, Chris Eubank, David Starie, and Robin Reid. Those were all good fighters, but not the kind of fighters that I would consider anywhere close to being comparable to a prime Jones and Hopkins.

In 2006, Calzaghe started stepping up the level of opposition, facing Jeff Lacy, Sakio Bika, Mikkel Kessler and Hopkins. Jones, by this time in his career, was a shell of the fighter he once was. Still, Calzaghe chose to fight him anyway. Jones has been stopped by Glen Johnson and Antonio Tarver in 2004, and soundly beaten by Tarver again in a rematch in 2005.

So how would Calzaghe have done against a prime Jones and Hopkins? In my view, not very good. I don’t really care at what point Calzaghe fought them. Even in Calzaghe’s prime of his career, which I feel was at the very end of it. I think Calzaghe would be hopelessly outclassed by both Hopkins and Jones. I think a younger Hopkins would have had too much power on his shots, and would have given Calzaghe big problems with his inside game.

Calzaghe barely beat an old 43-year-old Hopkins. You can only imagine what the outcome had been if Hopkins was 10 to 15 years younger at the time that he fought Calzaghe. And as for Jones, I think he would totally dominated Calzaghe if Roy was in his 20s, and I can’t see Calzaghe landing a glove on him. A young Jones was faster than Calzaghe, hit harder and was very difficult to hit. I know Calzaghe fans take pride in the fact that Calzaghe was capable of throwing 1000 punches per fight.

However, that crowding style of fighting that Calzaghe used would have been pretty much useless against a fast mover like Jones. I think Calzaghe would have been following Jones around all night long, getting picked off with shots that he would have problems seeing. I think Jones would have knocked Calzaghe down multiple times and stopped him by the 6th or 7th rounds.

As it was, the 39-year-old Jones was still good enough to put Calzaghe down in the 1st round of their fight. And I think Hopkins would have beaten Calzaghe by a lopsided 12 round decision. Hopkins probably wouldn’t have stopped Calzaghe, but he would have likely beaten him up pretty badly.