Bernard Hopkins told Steve Bunce’s Boxing Hour that he will not consider Chad Dawson as an opponent and believes the winner out of Joe Calzaghe and Roy Jones Jr will change their mind about not fighting him.
The Executioner produced the performance of his career last Saturday in Atlantic City to convincingly outpoint current middleweight king Kelly Pavlik.
Both Calzaghe and Jones, though paying respect to Hopkins’ performance, insist they have no interest in having second fights against the Philadelphia fighter.
Hopkins believes the media frenzy surrounding the aftermath of their fight, when he will be in attendance, will persuade the fighters that they have to take him on.
By Jonny Rashman Joe Calzaghe is a world class fighter, is unbeaten and one of the longest reigning world champions in the history of boxing, yet still boxing experts won’t give him the credit he deserves. It is only recently that Calzaghe is being treated like a superstar, even though he is 45 and 0, with 32 knockouts. While good fighters like Kelly Pavlik are talked about more highly than Calzaghe, why is that? Before Calzaghe destroyed Jeff Lacey, none of the world class fighters wanted to fight Calzaghe because there was not enough money involved to take the risk to fight Calzaghe, considering that there was a good chance they would get beat. All of a sudden these top class fighters are coming to the end of their careers and have been beaten in recent years, so they need Calzaghe now. 
By Michael Lieberman: Joe Calzaghe must be feeling a huge sense of relief right about now after middleweight knockout artist Kelly Pavlik was defeated by Bernard Hopkins on Saturday. There’s no getting around it, the loss was a huge defeat for Pavlik, and one that wiped out a lot of opportunities for him, one of which may or may not have been a fight with Calzaghe. Before the fight, Pavlik had been pushing hard for a fight with Calzaghe, but with little luck. Instead of wanting to face Pavlik, a fighter with an unbeaten record and an enormous amount of knockout victories, Calzaghe decided on Roy Jones Jr., a fighter that is perceived by many boxing experts to be the lesser threat than Pavlik. 
By Michael Lieberman: With his loss on Saturday to Bernard Hopkins, Kelly Pavlik was effectively removed from future considerations for a potential bout with Joe Calzaghe. Not that Calzaghe would ever fight him anyway, mind you, because he’s said repeatedly in the past that he planned on retiring immediately following his November 8th bout against Roy Jones Jr., just as long as he performed well against him. Many boxing fans and writers, however, felt that with enough pushing, Calzaghe would eventually fight Pavlik. Now unfortunately that has been taken off the table with Pavlik’s one-sided loss to Hopkins. 
By Michael Lieberman: Joe Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) had made it a personal mission for himself to not only retire on a positive note, but to also to retire undefeated, like Rocky Marciano. The problem I have with that is undefeated records, like the one that Calzaghe has, is pretty much meaningless when you’re not fighting the best opponents available. Compare, for instance, a fighter that has fought nothing but the best opponents for the first 20 fights of their career with someone that has fought largely fluff opponents and has an equally impressive unbeaten record after the same amount of fights. 
By Jim Dower: Joe Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) will wrap up his excellent career against Roy Jones Jr. (58-4, 38 KOs) on November 8th at New York’s Madison Square Garden, a fight that has earned Calzaghe a huge amount of criticism by many boxing fans who wanted to see him go out in style against undefeated Kelly Pavlik. Calzaghe, 35, however, is doing what Oscar De La Hoya is going, namely going after the most amount of money at the least amount of risk. He certainly deserves a easy fight or two after having a stellar career in which he defended his WBO super middleweight title countless times without losing once. 
By Aaron Klein: While Joe Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) continues to try and talk up the talent of his opponent Roy Jones Jr., who will supposedly be his last fight of his career on November 8th at New York’s Madison Square Garden, many in the boxing world aren’t so enamored by this fight and see it as merely Calzaghe cashing out of the sport the easy way in order to avoid more dangerous fighters like Kelly Pavlik or one of his many talented challengers to his WBO super middleweight title. Rather than have to continue to defend his WBO title, Calzaghe yesterday gave it up after 11 years. 
By Aaron Klein: Going into their fight on November 8th at Madison’s Square Garden, it’s very difficult for me to spot any real advantages that Roy Jones Jr. (52-4, 38 KOs) has going for against unbeaten Joe Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) other than perhaps size. That’s a quality that I probably shouldn’t be overlooking too much, because Jones might end up being too big, too powerful and too fast for Calzaghe to handle. However, now a ripe 39, just doesn’t look on Calzaghe’s level at this time, and it takes me quite awhile of digging to find a time when I think Jones could possibly beat a fighter of Calzaghe’s talent level. 
By William Mackay: You can include me in for one of those people who are less than impressed with the level of opponents that unbeaten super middleweight Joe Calzaghe has faced in his career. In looking over the mostly average fighters that Calzaghe has built up his unbeaten record on, I see few fighters of worth on the list that jump out at me. I can’t help but be left with the general impression that Calzaghe has either been carefully managed, steered clear of top fighters in his career like Julian Jackson, Bernard Hopkins, Gerald McClellan, Antonio Tarver and James Toney, or he just didn’t care to fight them. 
By Michael Lieberman: After watching this week’s Steve Bunce boxing special, I’m more than a little confused about who’s telling the truth between Joe Calzaghe and Kelly Pavlik in terms of whether or not Calzaghe ever offered a fight to Pavlik in the past. According to Calzaghe, he twice contacted Pavlik about a fight in the past but he failed to take the bait. For his part, Pavlik is saying that Calzaghe has never once offered to give him a fight, and is just trying to “save face” by saying that he offered Pavlik a fight which he wouldn’t accept. One thing is clear, however, Calzaghe clearly isn’t interested in fighting Pavlik anymore, if he ever was to begin with.