Cracking fight and a very good performance from Joe.

Not sure he would have done it against Jones in his prime though.

its all hyperthetical now i guess but if this fight was made some years ago and r.j.j took it seriously and trained and prepared for it in a professional way then he would have took j.c apart i.m.o

My Gran hits harder than Calzaghe (but no where near as accurate and she has rubbish combinations)

It was an excellent fight I thought, until RJJ got cut. If it had been anyone else apart from RJJ it would have been stopped IMO.

His reflexes would've been alot quicker, so he'd have caught Joe with alot punches and would've landed more combinations. All hypothetical though.

I don't think Joe Calzaghe has anything left to prove to anybody and would fully understand his decision to retire, although from a purely selfish point of view I'd love him to continue a little while longer since he's still at the top of his game.

Some people will never give him the credit he deserves... he's beaten both Hopkins and Jones Jr but they were both "past it" (despite the fact Hopkins beat the next big thing Kelly Pavlik in his next fight), he's destroyed Jeff Lacy but he was "unproven" and he's beaten Mikkel Kessler but he was a "European nobody". I've heard all these things come out of people in America, at the end of the day if he beat Pavlik people would just say he wasn't that special anyway as Hopkins beat him and if he beat Chad Dawson people would say Dawson wasn't a truly world class fighter anyway... there's nothing left for him to do in terms of improving his reputation in my eyes, he can only damage it from here on in. The one fight I would like to see Calzaghe take is against Carl Froch but unfortunately that would never happen since the yanks wouldn't care enough about it.

And 'Juice' Terry, Roy Jones Jr came out and said that Calzaghe's "slaps" hurt a lot more than he thought they would. You see his face at the end of the fight?

He’s an excellent boxer no doubt about it, very few boxers have the work rate that Calzaghe has. He is accurate and lighting quick and looks as if he could throw punches all day

However since his hand started breaking every time he threw a punch he seems to have lost a lot of power. I mean when is the last time he knocked someone out? When was the last time he put someone on the canvas? The Lacy fight for example, a master class in boxing yet Joe couldn’t put him down despite the bloke being completely out on his feet.

I remember him a few years back when he was doing all this he is doing now and finishing the job within the distance.


I’m off to Liverpool this Saturday for the European amateur boxing championships. Anyone else going?

He put Lacy down in the last round, although the fight should have been stopped long before then. After that, he stopped Manfredo in 3, although that decision was very premature in my opinion.

Overall though, I tend to agree with you, he's lost a lot of his power since his hand problems, he's now content to throw lots of "rat-a-tat" punches which wear people down over time, rather than looking to get them out of there with one shot.

Anybody watch [iThe Thriller In Manilla[/i last night on More 4? Absolutely fascinating stuff. Completely changed my opinion of Ali as a man. Check it out as it'll probably get another airing soon.

Did you realise he was a massive racist after watching it?

Not just the racism, but the way he humiliated his wife in public and treated Joe after the way he had been treated by him. It was appalling. The Nation Of Islam manipulation is no excuse. I found it all deeply saddening, particularly Frazier's situation.

You should watch – When We Were Kings. A similar documentary of a different fight.

It isn’t as good but looks at things from a different angle. Ali was tremendously entertaining both as a boxer and a speaker but his views towards the end seemed extremely warped.

Thriller in Manilla = Joe Frazier

When We Were Kings = Rumble in the Jungle = George Foreman

I'd also suggest reading King of the World by David Remnick, which explores Ali's childhood, amateur career and his pro career up to the Rumble in the Jungle. That goes into quite a bit of detail on his involvement with the Nation of Islam and the conflicts between his involvement with the Nation and his friendship with Malcolm X.