Somebody help me out.?

Question

Is it a different class of competition boxing in the UK your whole career as opposed to boxing in the US? My point being every one thought Hatton was so great then he got smoked by Mayweather...Now everybody is on the Calzaghe bandwagon. What is everybody else’s opinion on this matter?

Answer 1

I think Calzage vs Hopkins will be a telling tale. Because Joe is fighting a 43 yr old fighter. I mean how much does Hopkins have left? If he loses I think you know your answer. But in the Heavyweight division the U.S. no longer dominates but in the lower weight divisions I think boxing in the U.S. is the best! Let's let this fight play out and see who wins. But for Joe he better beat this old fighter if he wants any creditability at all. Even though Hopkins seems ageless he is over 40 and Joe should be able to beat a man this old.

Answer 2

To be fair Mayweather was #1 P4P, and has made a career out of smoking plenty of boxers who make their careers in the USA.  I think people downgraded Hatton way too much off this performance.

I don't like Calzaghe and feel for most of his career, except for a handful of opponents he has taken the easy route in his matchmaking, but when he has faced class opponents (Lacy, Kessler, Eubank, Reid, Brewer) he has come out on top comfortably.  

Sure if you are an English fighter and you fight strictly in England against English opponents, you will have an easier time than an American, but thats simply because there is a smaller sample size.  If you are fighting international opponents though, which Hatton and Calzaghe have then you are facing the same elite competition as an American boxer does.  American boxing is usually atop English boxing not so much because "we build a better boxer" but because there are more boxers to draw from, and also the major money to be made is in America.  

There have been and are plenty of great English boxers, and plenty that have been shown to be overated, but the same can be said of American fighters or any other countries fighters.

Answer 3

I tick off a lot of United Kingdom-ers, but boxing is conducted differently.  Hatton was fine as long at the rules of boxing were not closely enforced, and you end up with a lot of sloppy, incomplete fighters over on the big Island.  Then they come over, and it's a different ballgame, and they don't have any other tools to cope with a proper boxing match.  Hatton was lost when the ref refused to let him headbutt and hold-and-hit.  I don't think American boxers are better, I believe that UK boxers are incomplete.  Calzaghe's style will hold up better over in America because his attack isn't based upon questionable/illegal tactics.  At 35, Calzaghe is making his first real trip away from his comfort zone, and going up against his first multi-skilled opponent.  There is no way to gauge Calzaghe's reaction to what he's going to see against Hopkins, as there is no way to measure his performance against similar fighters.

My opinion?  The younger Hopkins would give Calz a boxing lesson similar to the one Hatton recieved at the fists of money Mayweather.  B-Hop is 42, if Calz pounds out a decision against him, well, he just beat up an old man, and we've still not learned a lot.  If we really want to see Calzaghe's true merit, he needs to step in against either Pavlik and Taylor for a true test.

One thing to watch, is Calzaghe's defense.  It's generated through offense, mostly by volume punching.  It's effective, but if anyone can poke through that kind of defense-via-offense, it's going to be Bernard Hopkins.  I think Bernard thinks that it's going to be easy to predict where Joe's head is going to be at any given time, and Hopkins is going to look to land some big haymaker counter punch, perhaps after a Calz combo we'll see Hopkins bomb a big hook.  Then we'll learn something about Calzaghe that we never learned before.

Answer 4

The troll above has duplicated my avatar and once again proven that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I hope I can provide the young lad with an honorable role model. Maybe in a couple decades he will actually grow out of his childish preoccupation. It really is amazing how many different accounts this guy has opened, I don't know how he finds the time, he must live on his mom's computer