Calzaghe Not Ready For Hopkins

Delusional Calzaghe thinks he can beat Bernard Hopkins

If Joe Calzaghe‘s performance against Sakio Bika at the M.E.N. Arena in Manchester, England, Saturday night was any indication, his desire to come to the U.S. to fight (and presumably beat) Bernard Hopkins is self-delusion raised to the level of masochism.

“I want to go to America because all the greats have gone over there. People say I am too much of a homeboy but I have shrugged my chains off and I am ready to explore. Hopkins is a true champion. He is talking about coming back to fight heavyweights but that is rubbish, insists Calzaghe, according to icNewcastle. He would love to step up to the challenge to fight me.”

Except for the money involved, it’s hard to see what benefit accrues to Hopkins by fighting Calzaghe, whose most recent sub-par performance won him no new adherents, and possibly lost him droves of his former fans in the process.

But, Calzaghe’s promoter Frank Warren said, “There will be a big fight in February. We have the possibility of the Hopkins fight and, who knows, it could be history in the making. (Or as Don King has been wont to say, with a bit more panache, We will be making history in the making.)

In his own defense, Calzaghe told the BBC that Not every performance is a great work of art, which describes his artless performance to perfection. But the excuses, unlike a hoped-for repeat of his sterling performance against Jeff Lacy, just keep on coming.

“He hit me about half a dozen times full-on with his head,” Calzaghe said. “He was an awkward customer.”

The BBC described Bika’s performance as a maelstrom of swinging arms, rabbit punches, head-butts, low blows and late shots,’ as though the Marquis of Queensberry was sitting ringside taking copious notes and shaking his bewigged head at each and every infraction.

Unfortunately, excuses by any other name are still excuses., and Hopkins, should he decide to lace em up another time, can better serve his legacy by fighting Oleg Maskaev for the heavyweight title, and leave Calzaghe and his brittle hands in the fantasyland in which he, and they, now reside.