Bernard Hopkins vs Joe Calzaghe Saturday on HBO

[Unknown Pleasures]

"Ring generalship" and "effective aggression" do offer a lot of room for interpretation. That's what makes judging boxing so interesting. Anyhow, using the ten point must system I have to give the nod to Calzaghe even though if I had to think of hte best ten punches landed in the fight he probably landed 7 of them.

 

[Necrocide]

I scored the fight even, I can see either guy winning by 2 rounds though. Gavin, your Hopkins hatred makes all the above posts way more biased, but the reality is a lot of people thought Hopkins won and a lot thought Calslappy won. Robbery doesn't belong in this conversation, it was a close fight.

Hopkins could have been penalized for excessive holding and Joe could have easily been penalized for low blows, elbows and rabbit punches. It just depends on how you score a fight, clean punches and damage or aggression and activity. The former and Hopkins wins, the later Joe has his hand raised.

Everything I hate about Calzaghe was illustrated in this fight. If you dislike Hopkins the same I'm sure can be said. Either way, it lived up to my personal expectations.

I'll admit that my bias against Hopkins probably comes into play in thinking that Jermain Taylor clearly won both of his fights against Hopkins 8 rounds to 4.

And if I have this one a little more lopsided than others, well, there's probably a reason for that, too.

My only real issue is that some people are ignoring the fact that Calzaghe legitimately hurt Hopkins more than once. And I think we can all agree that cuts and bruises aren't the best way to judge winners and losers in boxing matches.

 

[BobbyBrez]

I didn't really think Joe hurt Hopkins, maybe I'll rewatch the fight if I have time tomorrow.

Your bias comes from hating Hopkins, no different than my angst for Joe-son.

I don't think I ever said you can tell the winner of a fight from battle scars though, there are a zillion examples of that not being an intelligent way to score a fight. I will say that Cal***gy got hit flush more against Hopkins than against anyone else I've seen though.

 

[lugubriousduck]

I saw the fight 4 times and there was no time I saw Hopkins hurt (save for the supposedly low blows). Now, I am not discrediting Joe Cal's power. His bitch slaps deliver commutative damage. But I didn't see him land many blows clean and I didn't see Hopkins hurt. But then again everyone has their own definition of HURT. I remember me and KK had an argument over Cotto HURTING Mosley in their fight. I saw Cotto stopping Mosley in his tracks, but KK believe he hurt Mosley in that instance. This is what I saw in the Hopkins fight. I saw Hopkins throwing looping rights and got countered with a flurry that stopped him in his tracks. I don't consider that of actually HURTING Hopkins.

 

[Fedoraoki]

I didn't see Calzaghe hurt Hopkins, I saw him outpointing him, effective or not - he gave the judges something to think about with his punches.

 

[Unknown Pleasures]

I didn't see Calzaghe hurt Hopkins, I saw him outpointing him, effective or not - he gave the judges something to think about with his punches.

That, in a nutshell, is the summary of the fight IMO. Bravo.

 

[Necrocide]

Without the benefit of being able to re-watch the fight right now, I'll only have to guess. The most obvious one that me (and the people I was watching with, not just me and my hate for Bernard) caught was in the eighth or ninth round and Hopkins had his back to the ropes. Calzaghe got a punch up the middle on Hopkins and Bernard's knees buckled and he immediately went for a clinch. There were other instances, but that's the one that jumps out in my memory.