by James Slater: Speaking yesterday with the BBC, new Ring magazine light-heavyweight king Joe Calzaghe blasted the man he defeated to take his second world title. Almost a full week on from his close split decision victory over Bernard Hopkins, the 36 year old Welshman told BBC what he thinks of “The Executioner’s” disagreement with the scoring of the judges..
“He [Hopkins] should get over it. He should watch the tape and accept that he lost,” Joe said yesterday. “There were three American judges and he still lost. I don’t need to find 100 excuses as I won. He’s a sore loser,” Calzaghe added.
Almost a week on, I do still stand by my original article, in which I wrote how I felt Hopkins did enough to win. Still, Hopkins didn’t exactly go about things in the right way, when he refused to give Calzaghe any credit at all after having beaten him – whether he really felt he legitimately did or not. Due to B-Hop’s refusal to give the 45-0 Calzaghe any praise whatsoever, one cannot blame Joe for making his latest comments.
Moving on from Hopkins, Joe also spoke about his next potential foe, in Roy Jones Junior.
“I don’t mind if I never see the guy again. To be honest, I’ve never been a Bernard Hopkins fan and I never will be,” the 36 year old claimed. “[But] you ask me about Roy Jones Junior and I’ll say I like him and I love his style [of fighting]. I’ve got a lot of respect for him and he is a legend but Hopkins isn’t,” Calzaghe added.
It will be interesting to see how long Joe’s fondness for Jones lasts. With the 39 year old former pound-for-pound king likely to be Calzaghe’s next opponent, will the good vibe continue? It wouldn’t come as a big surprise that if and when a Calzaghe-Jones showdown approaches, the hype will bury that which we witnessed for the Calzaghe-Hopkins match-up. Jones, never a guy afraid to claim he own greatness and possibly downplay that of his opponent, just might get under Joe’s skin far more severely than B-Hop ever did. If so, will Calzaghe still be referring to Jones as a guy he “likes, and has a lot of respect for?”
We will likely see soon (the fight is pencilled in for November), but I’ve a feeling Joe may start to think Hopkins was a fairly tolerable guy if and when Jones gets in his face.