Calzaghe haters need to STFU!!!

[CRESCENDOPOWER]

Prime B-Hop backed out of a fight with Prime Calzaghe.

It's a shame B-Hop didn't share your optimism. Instead, he backed out of the proposed fight.

LOL, what year was this? Back when Cal was in hiding?

[Dave Rado]

When you are pound for pound in the world you don't have to.

Many great American fighters have travelled all over the world to fight. And non-American P4P fighters even more so, for financial reasons - Pacquiao is the current P4P #1 but fights in the US because of the money he can make there. But Ali and Ray Robinson, to name just two, frequently fought outside the US.

Roy's legacy would have been significantly improved if he had beaten Michalczewski. It would even have been slightly improved if he had beaten Benn or Eubank while he was still at Super Middleweight. There was far more money to be made for those three fights if they had been held on his opponents' turf than in the US, because they weren't big names in the States but were huge names in their own countries, capable of filling stadiums.

After the Olympics robbery he was always worried about being robbed again, which was a major reason Roy refused to travel - but he could have had a US ref and judges and still travelled - he had the negotiating clout to do that.

The Calzaghe fear of travelling myth is just that - a myth. He was willing to travel if he could get big fights by doing so, but he was not a big name outside the UK back then, so in most of his fights it made a lot more sense commercially for both fighters involved for the fights to be held in the UK.

Come get some back in 1998, ten plus years ago you ***** ***** when these guy were in their prime.

You just demean yourself with silly insults like that.

[Dave Rado]

LOL, what year was this? Back when Cal was in hiding?

2002. See my sig. Hopkins agreed a contract with Showtime, but doubled his purse demand (from $3 million to $6 million) on the day the contracts were due to be signed, and Showtime then killed it. The real reason was his bad blood with Don King - obviously he was confident that he would win, it was all to do with his bad relationship with King at the time.

[Sick/]

2002. See my sig. Hopkins agreed a contract with Showtime, but doubled his purse demand (from $3 million to $6 million) on the day the contracts were due to be signed, and Showtime then killed it. He said afterwards that the real reason was his bad blood with Don King.

If Calzaghe was a Welterweight he wouldn't of doubled it

[Vivid Intent]

He said afterwards that the real reason was his bad blood with Don King.

He said he didn't want to give King a dime but at the same time was calling out all the 154 fighters including the cash cow of boxing. If that's not irony I don't know what is.

[CRESCENDOPOWER]

Roy's legacy would have been significantly improved if he had beaten Michalczewski.

LOL, nobody even knows who this European clown is. Jones is a household name in the history books, this guy is a nobody.

[Dave Rado]

LOL, nobody even knows who this European clown is. Jones is a household name in the history books, this guy is a nobody.

You're mixing up casual fans who don't know anything about boxing with respected boxing historians and serious fans. The fact that Jones never fought the man who was universally ranked #2 at Light Heavyweight for most of his reign will always count against him with boxing historians, and will always affect his legacy to some extent in the minds of serious boxing fans. And your implication that because he was European he was therefore inferior is xenophobic in the extreme.

The Ring's Light Heavyweight ratings:

1998

Title Vacant

1. Roy Jones Jr.
2. Dariusz Michalczewsk

1999

Title Vacant

1. Roy Jones Jr.
2. Dariusz Michalczewsk

2000

Title Vacant

1. Roy Jones Jr.
2. Dariusz Michalczewsk


2001

Roy Jones Jr., Champion

1. Dariusz Michalczewski


2002

Roy Jones Jr., Champion

1. Antonio Tarver
2. Dariusz Michalczewski

2003

Roy Jones Jr., Champion

1. Antonio Tarver
2. Julio Cesar Gonzalez
3. Dariusz Michalczewski

[CRESCENDOPOWER]

You're mixing up casual fans who don't know anything about boxing with respected boxing historians and serious fans. The fact that Jones never fought the man who was universally ranked #2 at Light Heavyweight for most of his reign will always count against him with boxing historians, and will always affect his legacy to some extent in the minds of serious boxing fans. And your implication that because he was European he was therefore inferior is xenophobic in the extreme.

The Ring's Light Heavyweight ratings:

1998

Title Vacant

1. Roy Jones Jr.
2. Dariusz Michalczewsk

1999

Title Vacant

1. Roy Jones Jr.
2. Dariusz Michalczewsk

2000

Title Vacant

1. Roy Jones Jr.
2. Dariusz Michalczewsk


2001

Roy Jones Jr., Champion

1. Dariusz Michalczewski


2002

Roy Jones Jr., Champion

1. Antonio Tarver
2. Dariusz Michalczewski

2003

Roy Jones Jr., Champion

1. Antonio Tarver
2. Julio Cesar Gonzalez
3. Dariusz Michalczewski

You can twist things anyway you want. Roy was POUND FOR POUND boxer in the world at the time. If you want the man come get him, unless you are a *****. Roy walks right through any of the European boxers of that time, or any time in history. No one 20 years from now will even know who Michalczewski is. As a matter of fact no one acknowledges him unless they are European.

[Iceta]

That was a big fight. People were interested in it. It got a lot of press coverage and it gave him the biggest payday of his career, despite the relatively low PPV figures. Quite a few people, including many boxing analysts thought that even a past prime Jones could still beat Calzaghe, especially after he'd looked good against Trinidad. Read the press reports of the time if you don't believe me. A lot of people were speculating that Roy would beat Calzaghe and then set up a rematch with Hopkins. Even Hopkins thought and hoped that might happen, which is why he attended the fight.

No one said Roy was shot before the fight - they said that he was well past his prime but that he might have one more great performance still in him

And Calzaghe had wanted to fight Jones for many years but hadn't been a big enough name to tempt Jones when Roy was in his prime. He took the first serious opportunity he got. It was similar to Lewis fighting a way past his prime Tyson. It was just a glamour fight for him to close out on, and the chance to finally fight Roy. It doesn't do much - if anything - for his legacy, any more than beating a badly faded Tyson should do anything for Lewis's - but no one criticises Lewis for taking that fight with Tyson.

If people were interested in the Calzaghe-Jones fight then why did it totally bomb at the gate and on PPV? I know I sure didn't buy the farce of a match-up. When I was on every boxing forum that fight only garnered 3 to 7 pages of discussion at the most because every intelligent boxing observer knew it was a mismatch. And even though Pavlik was overrated at the time he was undefeated as we saw when Hopkins beat him, it's still the idea that that potential match-up had people going crazy at the time and discussing it non-stop.

And I don't just automatically assume that Calzaghe could've beaten Pavlik even though Hopkins did. Styles make fights and I don't know if Joe would've been able to stick his chin out and do that taunting bull**** (similar to what Roy Jones has done as you mentioned) when Pavlik wouldn't have been scared to hit him like Roy was. Calzaghe doesn't have a good defense in my opinion. His offense is his defense.

[Dave Rado]

You can twist things anyway you want. Roy was POUND FOR POUND boxer in the world at the time. If you want the man come get him, unless you are a *****. Roy walks right through any of the European boxers of that time, or any time in history. No one 20 years from now will even know who Michalczewski is. As a matter of fact no one acknowledges him unless they are European.

No one's twisting anything except you. Being pound for pound #1 is irrelevant - that isn't even a title, it's just a concensus opinion. Great champions are expected to fight the top contenders. Michalczewski was the top contender for four successive years of Roy's reign, the #2 contender the fifth year and the #3 contender in the sixth. No one Roy fought deserved a shot as much as Michalczewski did.

Boxing historians don't have such short memories as you have, that's why they're called historians. They look up records, and who the top contenders were.

As for no one even acknowledging him, if you really think The Ring is "no one", you've lost every shred of credibility. Cliff Rold has forgotten more about boxing than you will ever know and he makes it clear that not facing Michalczewski is the primary reason why he ranks Roy a bit lower than #50 in the ATG list rather than a lot higher.

Michalczewski did try to get a fight with Roy in the States, and travelled to the states looking to set up a fight with Roy; but there wouldn't have much money available for it to happen there, so it would have made much more sense commercially from both fighters' point of view to have it in Germany or Poland. Ali didn't have that silly attitude of yours - he fought all the top contenders, wherever they were from; and when it made sense commercially to do so, he travelled in order to fight them.

As for whether Roy would have walked through him or not, you're sounding like the worst Mayweather fans sound when you say that. Boxing isn't about "coulda woulda", it's about who fighters actually fight in the ring.

Roy is a truly great fighter, and one of the greatest athletes in the history of the sport. At his best, he was as wonderful to watch as Ali was, and could do things that no other fighter I've ever seen could do. But to pretend that it would not have helped his legacy if he had fought Michalczewski is just silly; and to claim that the reason is that Michalczewski is a European is extreme xenophobia bordering on racism.