Why isn't Calzaghe higher?

With a perfect 44-0 record and 21 title defenses, you'd assume England's Joe Calzaghe would be higher than No. 62 on a list of the 100 greatest fighters pound-for-pound in history. Even his win over Mikkel Kessler didn't push him any higher.

A couple of things are working against Calzaghe.

First, of his 21 defenses, 18 are WBO defenses only and the WBO is given slightly less weight in my ranking than the WBA, WBC and IBF.

Second, he doesn't have any unified title fights. He's worked around it. He's had the WBO crown since October of 1997. He held the IBF title for two fights in 2006 and now he has the WBA and WBC crowns from Kessler. Still, in my system, you need the IBF, WBA and WBC titles to be considered unified. I may have to revisit that at some point because of the alphabet soup of championships today.

Third, Calzaghe only has one win over a fighter in the top 125 bonus point system and that was Kessler, which earns him 14 extra points. If Kessler rebounds and wins more titles, he would move up and Calzaghe's bonus points would increase. If Kessler heads south and loses more fights, then Calzaghe would lose all bonus points.

To really move up the list, Calzaghe needs some mega fights. So far Chris Eubank, Jeff Lacy and Kessler are his big wins, and I'm not sure any of those fighters will make it into the Hall of Fame, which would elevate those wins to 100 point contests.

Of course, Calzaghe at 35 may get a shot against a Bernard Hopkins or even Roy Jones Jr. Perhaps Kelly Pavlik will move up and take him on if he can beat Jermaine Taylor again. If Taylor wins, he's committed to fighting at 166 so that could be an option. The current IBF champion is Lucian Bute, which wouldn't excite anyone, but it would give Calzaghe a chance to have all four titles.

Here are the the No. 60-69 all-time greatest boxers:

60. Tony Canzoneri, 1925-39, U.S., 50.512
61. Harry Greb, 1913-26, U.S., 50.445
62. Joe Calzaghe, 1993-07, United Kingdom, 50.066
63. Emile Griffith, 1958-77, U.S., 49.510
64. Naseem Hamed, 1992-02, United Kingdom, 49.407
65. Duilio Loi, 1948-62, Italy, 49.393
66. Chiquita Gonzalez, 1984-95, Mexico, 49.162
67. Sugar Shane Mosley, 1993-07, U.S., 49.035
68. Sam Langford, 1902-26, U.S., 48.874
69. Michael Carbajal, 1989-99, Canada, 48.866

At least it isn't long to the next big fight. Saturday, Nov. 10, Sugar Shane Mosley (No. 67) takes on Miguel Angel Cotto (No. 78).