“I wouldn’t recognize Joe Calzaghe if he was walking down the street wearing boxing gloves,” said Larry Merchant. Calzaghe spent years fighting in obscurity. Likewise, he is not respected by many boxing experts and fans. Therefore, what are four reasons why Joe Calzaghe is underrated?
Personality
Calzaghe only cared about winning during his boxing career. He was not a great self-promoter. However, boxers such as David Haye and Floyd Mayweather Jr. draw tons of attention from the media for their trashing talking and ability to hype a fight.
Yet, Calzaghe never had a big desire for the spotlight. He was happy hanging out in his hometown in Newbridge in South Wales. So he was overlooked for years. Calzaghe did not become widely known until his mid 30’s.
Avoided Fighter
Calzaghe was avoided by many big name boxers during his career. He was considered a big risk and low reward fight.
Calzaghe did try to get big fights earlier in his career. He tried to get an unification bout with IBF and WBA super middleweight champion Sven Ottke. Yet, Ottke did not want to fight him. He also tried to get a boxing match against a prime Bernard Hopkins in 2002. Hopkins initially agreed to the $3 million offer to fight him. Yet, Hopkins demanded $6 million the next day which was considered to high of a demand.
Great Endurance and Strong Chin
Calzaghe was known for his superb conditioning. He had enough endurance to make a marathon runner envious. He routinely threw over 1,000 punches in his fights. Calzaghe was an elite high volume puncher.
He threw a lot of punches. And Calzaghe could also take a punch. He had a very strong chin. He did not get knocked down often in his career. The few times Calzaghe did get knock down he got right back up because of his great recuperative abilities.
Undefeated
There are plenty of Joe Calzaghe haters who discredit his undefeated record. Yet, it is a rarity for a professional boxer to retire undefeated. He has joined a very selective group of fighters such as Rocky Marciano and Ricardo Lopez that retired without tasting defeat.
Every elite fighter is not consistent. However, Calzaghe did not let the frustration of fighting in obscurity effect his performance in the ring. The greatest upsets in boxing such as Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson and Hasim Rahman knocking out Lennox Lewis show how hard it is to consistently outperform your opponents.
Loren Robinson has watched and studied boxing for the past 12 years. He has written for boxing websites such as boxingnews24.com, eastsideboxing.com and pinoygreats.com. You can find more of his writing at the site www.lorenrobinson.com or you can follow him on Twitter, @BestWriter_InPA.
Sources
5 Jan. 2012 http://boxrec.com/
5 Jan. 2012 http://espn.go.com/