With JC saying that he's going to KO Nard, I expect him to go in there with the intention of boxing his way to a points win. He'd better do anyway, I've got too much money on him winning on pointsJoe Calzaghe says he will "retire and never show my face in public again" if he loses to Bernard Hopkins in Las Vegas on 19 April.
Calzaghe, 36, added that he was punching harder than ever ahead of his light-heavyweight debut and he plans to become the first man to stop Hopkins.
Super-middleweight king Calzaghe told BBC Sport: "I throw more punches and land more punches.
"That's what it comes down to, that's the basics of boxing."
Calzaghe, who is also making his debut on American soil, added: "I've definitely noticed that I'm punching harder in the gym. I will use the speed, but I'll definitely mix things up with the power punches, I want to knock him out.
"I hope he's got the Jeff Lacy (who Calzaghe outpointed in 2006) mentality and thinks that I slap, that I don't hit hard.
"Because he's in for a big shock. Believe me he's going to be feeling the power. I'm aiming to sit a bit more on my punches to hurt him."
Calzaghe, who is unbeaten in 44 fights, added that he believes he will be more effective at 175lb than he was at 168lb and that he has not diverged from his usual pre-fight training regime.
"I've not changed anything. The only difference is I'm not starving myself as much to make 12st," said the Newbridge man.
"I honestly believe making 12st drains my punching power. I've always been a big puncher, but over the last few years losing those last few pounds has made me struggle.
"Until you actually fight you don't really know how things will go, but as far as I'm concerned, I'll be better at the weight, much better. I'll have the punching power and the speed will be the same, the speed's always there."
Hopkins, who reigned as world middleweight champion for 10 years and who has lost just four of his 54 fights, has made much of his record against southpaws in the build-up to the fight.
The Philadelphian has recorded wins over Antonio Tarver and Winky Wright in his last two fights, both former world champions and both left-handers.
But Calzaghe said: "I know he's beaten quite a few southpaws, but I'm a totally different southpaw to anyone he's fought before.
"He's beaten eight or nine southpaws, but I've beaten 37 right-handers. So that must mean I'm better against right-handers than he is against lefties.
"And I'm no Winky Wright, who's a blown-up light-middleweight and went into his shell, and I'm not Antonio Tarver.
"I couldn't care less if he knocked them all out in the first round because things are going to be totally different when he steps in the ring with me."
Calzaghe also made assurances that Hopkins's trash-talking would not put him off his game in the lead-up to the fight.
"I think he tries to get into opponents' heads. But believe me, he's barking up the wrong tree with me," said Calzaghe.
"The loud one in the room is not the one you want to worry about. It's the ones who are quiet that I get worried about.
"He brings nothing in the ring or outside the ring that I haven't seen before. So I'll let him carry on and keep barking and barking because on fight-night I'm going to be the bad guy, I promise that."
Calzaghe not contemplating defeat
Calzaghe not contemplating defeat
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/boxing/7335905.stm
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MightyWarrior
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 13284
- Joined: 23 Jan 2003, 14:01
Bad start to the Calzaghe US campaign, with him being left short his main sparring partner for the last week. Bad boy Bradley Pryce's past catching up with him, and the yanks are withholding his visa for the time being.
Says he hopes to be there this Sat, but that's very late, at a crucial time.
Hopefully Enzo has splashed the cash and grabbed some decent US sparring replacements to fill in, but I doubt it somehow...think they've been relying on novice Nathan Cleverly in the meantime.
This is no time for amateur night in Dixie.
Says he hopes to be there this Sat, but that's very late, at a crucial time.
Hopefully Enzo has splashed the cash and grabbed some decent US sparring replacements to fill in, but I doubt it somehow...think they've been relying on novice Nathan Cleverly in the meantime.
This is no time for amateur night in Dixie.
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Eraserhead
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 554
- Joined: 14 Dec 2007, 18:46
The more I hear Joe and Enzo Calzaghe talk about this fight, the more I'm starting to think Bernard Hopkins is going to take them both to school. This fight's getting closer and closer in my eyes as each day passes. I've got this niggling doubt that Joe and Enzo could be waaaay out of their depth here 
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MightyWarrior
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 13284
- Joined: 23 Jan 2003, 14:01
Great article on him here -
'I've never wanted fame. I've only ever wanted recognition'
Joe Calzaghe has beaten everyone in the ring but one fight remains
Andrew Anthony
Sunday April 6, 2008
Observer Sport Monthly
Dumped in a rubbish-strewn field on an industrial estate in south-east Wales, the squat, pebble-dash hut looks convincingly derelict as you approach. Lights are broken, windows cracked and panels are missing. This is the Newbridge Boxing Club, the base of Joe Calzaghe, world super-middleweight champion, reigning BBC Sports Personality of the Year, and arguably the best fighter this country has produced in living memory.
Inside it is scarcely more welcoming. With the exception of a deep-freeze storage warehouse, it is the only building I have ever been in that is colder in winter than the air outside. The lavatory is out of order and there is a dead mouse floating in the spit bucket. And everyone agrees that it is a vast improvement on the gym in which Calzaghe trained until five years ago.
Apparently that was a shack built over a river, with a ring made from carpet and ropes held up by broom handles. Calzaghe thinks the new place, just outside Newbridge in Abercarn, 'feels like a palace'. A lot of successful sports people talk about staying true to their roots, but very few would take that commitment so far - or near - as the Newbridge Boxing Club. It is a testament to Calzaghe's unassuming nature that he does not even appear to notice the rudimentary surroundings. In an age of shrieking celebrity, he is the anti-star, a huge talent who has spent the bulk of his career in public obscurity. 'I've never wanted fame,' he says. 'I've only ever wanted recognition.'
But recognition seemed not to want him. Undefeated in 44 fights, he is statistically the most successful British boxer in history, having defended his world title for a record 22 fights during the course of more than a decade. But, until last year, only boxing fans could reliably put a name to his pretty-boy features.
He became world champion way back in 1997 when he beat Chris Eubank in a punishing 12-round encounter. The monocled one told him that he was going to take him 'down in the trenches' and he was as good as his word. Calzaghe still rates it as his hardest fight. 'I don't think Eubank was the best fighter by any means. It's just that it was my first 12-round fight. I dropped him in the first minute of the first round and after three rounds I felt absolutely spent. I was dehydrated and I thought, "How the fornicate am I going to get through this fight?" He's a very strong guy, but I wanted it so bad I kept plugging away.'
It was typical of Calzaghe's luck that his moment of triumph came precisely as the great British public decided to change their feelings about Eubank. As a result, the talk was all of the former champion's plucky heroics rather than the new one's era-ending achievement.
'They love a loser in this country,' Calzaghe says, shaking his head in bemusement. 'They hated Eubank when he was champion. He goes and loses and they love him. Work it out. I don't know, it's ridiculous.'
It hardly helped Calzaghe's profile that his arrival also coincided with boxing's disappearance into the backwaters of pay-per-view satellite television. Nor was he able to trade on the great rivalry that captured the public imagination during the prime years of Eubank, Nigel Benn, Michael Watson and Ireland's Steve Collins. He soon learned that there was a major problem in being better than anyone else. No one wanted to fight him.
He was too dangerous for the big names, and he couldn't become better known fighting the small names. That was the Catch-22 that governed the disappointing trajectory of Calzaghe's popularity. Throw in an introverted personality and a succession of hand injuries, and you get one of Britain's finest ever boxers locked away in the margins of the nation's consciousness.
But last year Calzaghe broke out into the mainstream. In November he unified his division, defeating Mikkel Kessler in an unyielding display of boxing skill that made him undisputed world champion. And a month later he was voted winner of the BBC's Sports Personality award.
This month, he will fight for the first time in his career in America, when he meets Bernard Hopkins, a self-proclaimed legend, in Las Vegas in a light-heavyweight bout. At the age of 36, Calzaghe has finally hit the international big time.
But it seems that not even everyone in Newbridge, a dozen miles north-west of Newport, has caught up with the local hero's new status. The taxi driver who takes us to the industrial estate is not sure of the whereabouts of Calzaghe's gym, so I ask a young bloke sitting in a car. 'Calzaghe?' he repeats back to me, as if I'd sworn in Italian. 'I haven't got a fornicating clue what you're talking about.'
Eventually I find the Welshman with a group of boxers running up and down some steps outside the gym. A diminutive character with slicked-back hair is barking out unintelligible orders, like a sergeant major using an unfamiliar language, perhaps Venusian. This is Joe's Sardinia-born father, Enzo Calzaghe, the man who has been his coach since he started out hitting rolled-up carpets as a nine-year-old. A self-taught trainer who never boxed, Enzo has become one of the most respected cornermen in the business.
Having completed the outside work, the boxers retreat to the icy atmosphere of the gym. Later I ask Enzo if the supercooled temperature of the room is some kind of deliberate training technique. 'The fornicating gym's cold,' he replies in an accent that is Sardinian-Welsh by way of Bedford, 'because I can't afford the fornicating heating,' before going on a rant about the 'boys' not paying their club membership dues.
Joe works out on various bags in three-minute stints. He hits the floor-to-ceiling bag so fiercely that it bursts loose of its moorings. It is only when you see a boxer at close quarters that you can truly appreciate the power of his punching. This is especially so in Calzaghe's case, because of his astonishing hand speed. He has landed more than a thousand punches in a bout and he frequently registers more than a hundred in a round.
But to get the full measure of both his speed and power it is best to see him in the ring with his father holding the pads. In his autobiography, No Ordinary Joe, Calzaghe writes that people 'are amazed whenever they see us working on the pads', and I am no exception. Enzo and son developed a distinctive style of boxing when Joe was a boy, in which a range of punches - jabs, upper cuts, hooks and straight shots - were packed together in unlikely sequences. Enzo says he cannibalised the styles of the boxers he admired - Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler - and built them around his son's natural speed of hand. Joe never much liked skipping or working the heavy bags, but hitting the pads remains his game.
His father calls out the combinations in the same impenetrable tongue - 'Azha ban ugh, shiao a yup neh' - that left me dumbfounded earlier, while the son launches a fusillade of shots from every angle. There is something about the sound - a percussive explosion of grunts, shouts and thwacks - and the blur of movement that is deeply satisfying to witness. Perhaps it is creativity maximised in the cause of destruction. Or maybe it is just the pleasure of witnessing a craftsman at work.
Then Calzaghe stops and leans his face towards his father with an expression of complete incomprehension. 'What?' he says. 'What did you say?' I feel relieved that it's not just me, but the fact remains that for the previous three rounds Calzaghe responded instantaneously to every mysterious word. I can't work out what's more impressive: to be able to understand Enzo's instructions or to follow them. To do both, like Calzaghe, is comparable to solving encrypted route instructions while driving at 120mph.
Boxing deserves its reputation as a murky sport. Leaving aside all the nefarious rumours involving gangsters, very little, aside from a knockout, is crystal clear. Fans still dispute, for example, whether Sugar Ray Leonard deserved the decision against Marvin Hagler back in 1987. And in an age of multiple boxing federations and shameless hyperbole, it is particularly difficult to establish a boxer's true standing.
The best way, of course, is to set the best against one another (although as Leonard and Hagler showed, the result is by no means definitive), but that is not always the most financially beneficial approach and in boxing money determines all. Therefore it is difficult to know exactly how good Calzaghe is. He has beaten everyone put before him, including five former world champions, but he never encountered either of the two finest boxers of his era and weight: Roy Jones Jr and Bernard Hopkins.
'It used to hurt me when people said I was hiding in Wales,' Calzaghe says. '"You don't want to fight anybody." Bullshit. I've fought dangerous fighters. Roy Jones didn't want to know. Hopkins agreed to fight seven years ago, then he turned round the next day and doubled his fee.'
Now, on the 19th of this month, he will finally meet Hopkins. The only problem is that the American is 43. Although remarkably fit and indisputably a dangerous fighter, he is way past sensible retirement age. 'You can never win against some people,' Calzaghe says. 'At the end of the day, it's a massive fight.'
Certainly Hopkins is no punch-drunk has-been looking for his last big pay-packet. Two years ago he beat Antonio Tarver, the first man to knock out Roy Jones Jr. And two years before that he defeated the great Oscar de la Hoya. He doesn't need the money. He is a wealthy businessman in his own right and, at a press conference at Planet Hollywood in London in February, he spoke with the sass and menace of the young hoodlum he once was. Hopkins, as he is not slow to remind his audience, hails from the mean streets of Philadelphia. His brother was shot dead in 1984 and Hopkins himself served five years for robbery with violence.
At the press conference, I watched Calzaghe as his opponent was bad-mouthing him, and he seemed to be staring off into the distance, barely listening. He refused to play the ticket-selling game and reply in kind, but simply stated that he would take care of their difference of opinion in the ring. He remains unimpressed by Hopkins's tactics.
'He thinks he can intimidate me because he's been to prison for robbery. So what? So you burgled somebody, you brave boy. fornicating wow wee, that makes you a thug not a fighter. It makes you an idiot.'
Earlier, in the States, Hopkins had started the promotional ball rolling by claiming that he would never lose to a 'white boy'. In London he refused to withdraw the comment, although he would not enlarge upon it, either. What did Calzaghe think?
'Was I offended?' he asks. 'No, not at all. I can't say I'd never lose to a black man - I've beaten 35 of them - I'd be called a racist. Imagine, there'd be a fornicating outcry. But he's going to lose to a white boy. He's just a wily, dirty fighter who bends the rules and is awkward. That's all he is. I've got no dislike for him. I can see through him. He says he's going to make me "piss blood". Am I supposed to be worried about that? If he was talking to a kid, it might scare him. I've had more fights than him [in fact Hopkins has had 54 pro bouts to Calzaghe's 44], and I've had more wars in the ring.'
We are now sitting in the weights room, which, if it is scientifically possible, is even colder than the main room. Calzaghe has showered after his session and is wearing just a tracksuit. I am shivering in two coats and I fear for his health.
Where his friend Ricky Hatton is the very picture of an English bruiser, Calzaghe is unfeasibly well chiselled, given his profession. And nor is he above a little vanity. He refused to remove his shirt for the photographer because he was still in the early stages of weight loss. His normal weight is around 14 stone, and fighting as a super-middleweight he would have to come down to 12 stone.
His match with Hopkins is at light-heavyweight, which means getting down to 12st 7lb. 'A piece of piss,' he says.
Calzaghe's mother, Jackie, is Welsh but also dark and Italian-looking. She met Enzo in a Wimpy restaurant in Cardiff when she took his order. Four weeks later they were married. They tried to make a life on Enzo's home island of Sardinia, but Jackie could not settle and they returned to Wales. Enzo joined his brothers in a pop band, scraping out a living as a support act to the likes of Bucks Fizz and the Barron Knights.
As a kid, Joe was fascinated by the Rocky films. He would watch Sylvester Stallone punching sides of beef, then put a piece of orange peel in his mouth for a gumshield and go and punch the back of the settee. By 14 he was a youth champion, but he was also bullied at secondary school. 'It wasn't physical,' he says, 'because I could handle myself. It was more psychological. At 14, 15 everyone at school stopped talking to me and I went completely into my shell. Basically I'd be hiding. I had no friends. I hated it.'
He was so anxious that he couldn't concentrate in class, yet he did not skip school, or tell his parents, or do anything to alleviate the problem. He just endured it. The episode has left its mark on Calzaghe. In public situations he can still look as if he wants to hide, but there is also a deep-set stoicism, a refusal to buckle that has doubtless served him well in the ring.
Though proud of both his Italian and Welsh blood, he believes that it has been a handicap to box out of Wales. He still resents the Welsh Amateur Boxing Association for not nominating him to try for Britain's squad for the 1992 Olympics. It bore the hallmarks of a classic small-minded decision, a vindictive response to Calzaghe having pulled out of a couple of international tournaments. He is convinced he would have won a medal in Barcelona and therefore found the level of national following that launched Amir Khan's career after the Athens Games in 2004. Instead it became one of several key might-have-beens that long kept Calzaghe's fan-base largely restricted to the south Wales valleys. In the early years of this decade he entered a strange period in the doldrums, in which he retained his title but not much else. Observers were beginning to wonder if he was just another mediocre British boxer hanging on to a devalued (World Boxing Organisation) title. At one point, after several lacklustre bouts, his promoter, allegedly told him to sack his father and bring in a more experienced trainer.
Calzaghe reluctantly heeded the advice, only to reverse the decision almost straight away. Then, just as he was getting back on track, he went through a bitter divorce from his wife, with whom he has two sons, Conner and Joe Jr.
His mind was elsewhere when he fought Kabary Salem in October 2004, and he was knocked down for only the second time as a professional. 'At the end of the day I beat the guy,' Calzaghe recalls, 'but he was a sparring partner, let's face it, I should have taken care of business with him easily. I got caught with stupid punches because I wasn't into it. You think you are, but you're not. I was preoccupied with the divorce, money issues, and the courts.'
It was not until 18 successful title defences after the Eubank fight that he managed to break through to a much wider public. In March 2006 he faced Jeff Lacy, an undefeated 28-year-old American whom many pundits believed to be the Mike Tyson of the middleweights. Powerful, muscular and aggressive, Lacy came to Manchester to end Calzaghe's time in the top flight.
Here was a big-name American, the kind that some observers had accused Calzaghe of avoiding. But, a few weeks before the fight, Calzaghe suffered a recurrence of a hand injury. Since damaging his right wrist in 1989, he has collected a medical catalogue of sprains, fractures and breaks in and around the hands. He fought half of his bout with Richard Reid with a broken metacarpal, for example, and eight rounds against Evans Ashira with the same injury, effectively winning one-handed.
Over the years his style has had to become less about power punching and more focused on intensity. Now, with Lacy awaiting him, he was on the point of withdrawing from the fight. It was Enzo who persuaded him to stick with it.
Enzo has a way with words. They may not always ring familiar to the human ear, but he has the kind of conviction in his voice of which even the toughest take notice. When Tyson blanked Calzaghe at a fight event, it was Enzo who gave the heavyweight an ear-bashing. It was Enzo, too, who took Hopkins to task at the London press conference, informing him at length that his son had his number.
The Lacy fight turned out to be Calzaghe's greatest night. Held at the MEN Arena in Manchester, there was a raw edge to the atmosphere. In such conditions are reputations made and broken.
'My dad is a great caller of fights,' says Calzaghe, who by now, some way into our conversation in the weights room, is probably at risk of exposure, if not frostbite. 'And he said, "Joe this is going to be one of your easiest fights." I thought, "What are you talking about?" He said, "Joe, from the first minute of the round you will fornicating destroy this guy." He hit me with his hardest shot and it didn't flinch me.'
I ask Enzo if he is ever worried that his son might get hurt. 'Bollocks,' is his considered response. 'I know the guy's ability. He can adapt to anything in the ring. Why should I worry?'
Barry McGuigan judged Calzaghe's performance the best from a British boxer he had ever seen, and no less an authority than Sugar Ray Leonard described it as a 'demonstration of pure boxing ... a boxing clinic, masterful'. Lacy had accused the Newbridge southpaw of being a 'slapper', someone who hit ineffectually with the inside of his glove, but over the course of 12 rounds the American experienced the full range of the Welshman's punching and it featured precious few slaps. Lacy was beaten up with the relentless invention that borders disturbingly, in boxing, on the beautiful.
'Everything came together on that fight, it was better than knocking him out,' is how Calzaghe puts it, in an oddly matter-of-fact tone. 'I humiliated him.'
But although he had impressed Irish and American boxing legends and mesmerised the watching crowd, Calzaghe did not manage to sway the British public. That year he came only third in the Sports Personality of the Year vote, which was won by Zara Phillips. The Welshman claimed that he was not bothered but, like all the best boxers, he was merely concealing the hurt. Once more he was the bemused witness to British sporting priorities.
The fight last year against Mikkel Kessler, which made him undisputed world champion, finally did the trick with the BBC poll, although Lewis Hamilton would have walked away with the award had he not lost the Formula One title. The fact is most viewers have never seen Calzaghe fight, and that is a particular shame in the case of the Kessler fight. The esteem in which each boxer held the other was matched only by their efforts to defeat their opponent.
'You saw the mutual respect before the fight and after the fight,' Calzaghe says. 'In America they slag each other off at the press conference then get in the ring and don't do anything. When I was younger I used to mouth off a lot, but it wasn't me. I just did it because I thought that's what you had to do: Naz [Prince Naseem Hamed] was doing it, Benn and Eubank were doing it. But people called me arrogant and I thought, "Well maybe I'm being somebody I'm not." All this "I'm going to knock you out", I don't say it. There's no need to say it.'
Calzaghe does not really have to say anything. His record speaks for itself. He has won all 44 fights of his professional career (32 by stopping his opponent). He plans to make it 45 with Hopkins and then have one more fight before retiring with his record intact. But won't allegedly try to talk him out of that?
'Oh yeah,' Calzaghe says, 'but I'm a big boy. He's a promoter and like any promoter he wants to make money. And I'm good business, so he'll probably say that, but the final decision is mine and in my heart I know I want to retire. Let's hope greed doesn't get the better of me.'
Noticing that he is now pulling his tracksuit arms over his frozen hands, we go outside to the chill February afternoon in the Prince of Wales industrial estate, where it's not so cold. From the valleys to Vegas, the temperature can only get hotter
'I've never wanted fame. I've only ever wanted recognition'
Joe Calzaghe has beaten everyone in the ring but one fight remains
Andrew Anthony
Sunday April 6, 2008
Observer Sport Monthly
Dumped in a rubbish-strewn field on an industrial estate in south-east Wales, the squat, pebble-dash hut looks convincingly derelict as you approach. Lights are broken, windows cracked and panels are missing. This is the Newbridge Boxing Club, the base of Joe Calzaghe, world super-middleweight champion, reigning BBC Sports Personality of the Year, and arguably the best fighter this country has produced in living memory.
Inside it is scarcely more welcoming. With the exception of a deep-freeze storage warehouse, it is the only building I have ever been in that is colder in winter than the air outside. The lavatory is out of order and there is a dead mouse floating in the spit bucket. And everyone agrees that it is a vast improvement on the gym in which Calzaghe trained until five years ago.
Apparently that was a shack built over a river, with a ring made from carpet and ropes held up by broom handles. Calzaghe thinks the new place, just outside Newbridge in Abercarn, 'feels like a palace'. A lot of successful sports people talk about staying true to their roots, but very few would take that commitment so far - or near - as the Newbridge Boxing Club. It is a testament to Calzaghe's unassuming nature that he does not even appear to notice the rudimentary surroundings. In an age of shrieking celebrity, he is the anti-star, a huge talent who has spent the bulk of his career in public obscurity. 'I've never wanted fame,' he says. 'I've only ever wanted recognition.'
But recognition seemed not to want him. Undefeated in 44 fights, he is statistically the most successful British boxer in history, having defended his world title for a record 22 fights during the course of more than a decade. But, until last year, only boxing fans could reliably put a name to his pretty-boy features.
He became world champion way back in 1997 when he beat Chris Eubank in a punishing 12-round encounter. The monocled one told him that he was going to take him 'down in the trenches' and he was as good as his word. Calzaghe still rates it as his hardest fight. 'I don't think Eubank was the best fighter by any means. It's just that it was my first 12-round fight. I dropped him in the first minute of the first round and after three rounds I felt absolutely spent. I was dehydrated and I thought, "How the fornicate am I going to get through this fight?" He's a very strong guy, but I wanted it so bad I kept plugging away.'
It was typical of Calzaghe's luck that his moment of triumph came precisely as the great British public decided to change their feelings about Eubank. As a result, the talk was all of the former champion's plucky heroics rather than the new one's era-ending achievement.
'They love a loser in this country,' Calzaghe says, shaking his head in bemusement. 'They hated Eubank when he was champion. He goes and loses and they love him. Work it out. I don't know, it's ridiculous.'
It hardly helped Calzaghe's profile that his arrival also coincided with boxing's disappearance into the backwaters of pay-per-view satellite television. Nor was he able to trade on the great rivalry that captured the public imagination during the prime years of Eubank, Nigel Benn, Michael Watson and Ireland's Steve Collins. He soon learned that there was a major problem in being better than anyone else. No one wanted to fight him.
He was too dangerous for the big names, and he couldn't become better known fighting the small names. That was the Catch-22 that governed the disappointing trajectory of Calzaghe's popularity. Throw in an introverted personality and a succession of hand injuries, and you get one of Britain's finest ever boxers locked away in the margins of the nation's consciousness.
But last year Calzaghe broke out into the mainstream. In November he unified his division, defeating Mikkel Kessler in an unyielding display of boxing skill that made him undisputed world champion. And a month later he was voted winner of the BBC's Sports Personality award.
This month, he will fight for the first time in his career in America, when he meets Bernard Hopkins, a self-proclaimed legend, in Las Vegas in a light-heavyweight bout. At the age of 36, Calzaghe has finally hit the international big time.
But it seems that not even everyone in Newbridge, a dozen miles north-west of Newport, has caught up with the local hero's new status. The taxi driver who takes us to the industrial estate is not sure of the whereabouts of Calzaghe's gym, so I ask a young bloke sitting in a car. 'Calzaghe?' he repeats back to me, as if I'd sworn in Italian. 'I haven't got a fornicating clue what you're talking about.'
Eventually I find the Welshman with a group of boxers running up and down some steps outside the gym. A diminutive character with slicked-back hair is barking out unintelligible orders, like a sergeant major using an unfamiliar language, perhaps Venusian. This is Joe's Sardinia-born father, Enzo Calzaghe, the man who has been his coach since he started out hitting rolled-up carpets as a nine-year-old. A self-taught trainer who never boxed, Enzo has become one of the most respected cornermen in the business.
Having completed the outside work, the boxers retreat to the icy atmosphere of the gym. Later I ask Enzo if the supercooled temperature of the room is some kind of deliberate training technique. 'The fornicating gym's cold,' he replies in an accent that is Sardinian-Welsh by way of Bedford, 'because I can't afford the fornicating heating,' before going on a rant about the 'boys' not paying their club membership dues.
Joe works out on various bags in three-minute stints. He hits the floor-to-ceiling bag so fiercely that it bursts loose of its moorings. It is only when you see a boxer at close quarters that you can truly appreciate the power of his punching. This is especially so in Calzaghe's case, because of his astonishing hand speed. He has landed more than a thousand punches in a bout and he frequently registers more than a hundred in a round.
But to get the full measure of both his speed and power it is best to see him in the ring with his father holding the pads. In his autobiography, No Ordinary Joe, Calzaghe writes that people 'are amazed whenever they see us working on the pads', and I am no exception. Enzo and son developed a distinctive style of boxing when Joe was a boy, in which a range of punches - jabs, upper cuts, hooks and straight shots - were packed together in unlikely sequences. Enzo says he cannibalised the styles of the boxers he admired - Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler - and built them around his son's natural speed of hand. Joe never much liked skipping or working the heavy bags, but hitting the pads remains his game.
His father calls out the combinations in the same impenetrable tongue - 'Azha ban ugh, shiao a yup neh' - that left me dumbfounded earlier, while the son launches a fusillade of shots from every angle. There is something about the sound - a percussive explosion of grunts, shouts and thwacks - and the blur of movement that is deeply satisfying to witness. Perhaps it is creativity maximised in the cause of destruction. Or maybe it is just the pleasure of witnessing a craftsman at work.
Then Calzaghe stops and leans his face towards his father with an expression of complete incomprehension. 'What?' he says. 'What did you say?' I feel relieved that it's not just me, but the fact remains that for the previous three rounds Calzaghe responded instantaneously to every mysterious word. I can't work out what's more impressive: to be able to understand Enzo's instructions or to follow them. To do both, like Calzaghe, is comparable to solving encrypted route instructions while driving at 120mph.
Boxing deserves its reputation as a murky sport. Leaving aside all the nefarious rumours involving gangsters, very little, aside from a knockout, is crystal clear. Fans still dispute, for example, whether Sugar Ray Leonard deserved the decision against Marvin Hagler back in 1987. And in an age of multiple boxing federations and shameless hyperbole, it is particularly difficult to establish a boxer's true standing.
The best way, of course, is to set the best against one another (although as Leonard and Hagler showed, the result is by no means definitive), but that is not always the most financially beneficial approach and in boxing money determines all. Therefore it is difficult to know exactly how good Calzaghe is. He has beaten everyone put before him, including five former world champions, but he never encountered either of the two finest boxers of his era and weight: Roy Jones Jr and Bernard Hopkins.
'It used to hurt me when people said I was hiding in Wales,' Calzaghe says. '"You don't want to fight anybody." Bullshit. I've fought dangerous fighters. Roy Jones didn't want to know. Hopkins agreed to fight seven years ago, then he turned round the next day and doubled his fee.'
Now, on the 19th of this month, he will finally meet Hopkins. The only problem is that the American is 43. Although remarkably fit and indisputably a dangerous fighter, he is way past sensible retirement age. 'You can never win against some people,' Calzaghe says. 'At the end of the day, it's a massive fight.'
Certainly Hopkins is no punch-drunk has-been looking for his last big pay-packet. Two years ago he beat Antonio Tarver, the first man to knock out Roy Jones Jr. And two years before that he defeated the great Oscar de la Hoya. He doesn't need the money. He is a wealthy businessman in his own right and, at a press conference at Planet Hollywood in London in February, he spoke with the sass and menace of the young hoodlum he once was. Hopkins, as he is not slow to remind his audience, hails from the mean streets of Philadelphia. His brother was shot dead in 1984 and Hopkins himself served five years for robbery with violence.
At the press conference, I watched Calzaghe as his opponent was bad-mouthing him, and he seemed to be staring off into the distance, barely listening. He refused to play the ticket-selling game and reply in kind, but simply stated that he would take care of their difference of opinion in the ring. He remains unimpressed by Hopkins's tactics.
'He thinks he can intimidate me because he's been to prison for robbery. So what? So you burgled somebody, you brave boy. fornicating wow wee, that makes you a thug not a fighter. It makes you an idiot.'
Earlier, in the States, Hopkins had started the promotional ball rolling by claiming that he would never lose to a 'white boy'. In London he refused to withdraw the comment, although he would not enlarge upon it, either. What did Calzaghe think?
'Was I offended?' he asks. 'No, not at all. I can't say I'd never lose to a black man - I've beaten 35 of them - I'd be called a racist. Imagine, there'd be a fornicating outcry. But he's going to lose to a white boy. He's just a wily, dirty fighter who bends the rules and is awkward. That's all he is. I've got no dislike for him. I can see through him. He says he's going to make me "piss blood". Am I supposed to be worried about that? If he was talking to a kid, it might scare him. I've had more fights than him [in fact Hopkins has had 54 pro bouts to Calzaghe's 44], and I've had more wars in the ring.'
We are now sitting in the weights room, which, if it is scientifically possible, is even colder than the main room. Calzaghe has showered after his session and is wearing just a tracksuit. I am shivering in two coats and I fear for his health.
Where his friend Ricky Hatton is the very picture of an English bruiser, Calzaghe is unfeasibly well chiselled, given his profession. And nor is he above a little vanity. He refused to remove his shirt for the photographer because he was still in the early stages of weight loss. His normal weight is around 14 stone, and fighting as a super-middleweight he would have to come down to 12 stone.
His match with Hopkins is at light-heavyweight, which means getting down to 12st 7lb. 'A piece of piss,' he says.
Calzaghe's mother, Jackie, is Welsh but also dark and Italian-looking. She met Enzo in a Wimpy restaurant in Cardiff when she took his order. Four weeks later they were married. They tried to make a life on Enzo's home island of Sardinia, but Jackie could not settle and they returned to Wales. Enzo joined his brothers in a pop band, scraping out a living as a support act to the likes of Bucks Fizz and the Barron Knights.
As a kid, Joe was fascinated by the Rocky films. He would watch Sylvester Stallone punching sides of beef, then put a piece of orange peel in his mouth for a gumshield and go and punch the back of the settee. By 14 he was a youth champion, but he was also bullied at secondary school. 'It wasn't physical,' he says, 'because I could handle myself. It was more psychological. At 14, 15 everyone at school stopped talking to me and I went completely into my shell. Basically I'd be hiding. I had no friends. I hated it.'
He was so anxious that he couldn't concentrate in class, yet he did not skip school, or tell his parents, or do anything to alleviate the problem. He just endured it. The episode has left its mark on Calzaghe. In public situations he can still look as if he wants to hide, but there is also a deep-set stoicism, a refusal to buckle that has doubtless served him well in the ring.
Though proud of both his Italian and Welsh blood, he believes that it has been a handicap to box out of Wales. He still resents the Welsh Amateur Boxing Association for not nominating him to try for Britain's squad for the 1992 Olympics. It bore the hallmarks of a classic small-minded decision, a vindictive response to Calzaghe having pulled out of a couple of international tournaments. He is convinced he would have won a medal in Barcelona and therefore found the level of national following that launched Amir Khan's career after the Athens Games in 2004. Instead it became one of several key might-have-beens that long kept Calzaghe's fan-base largely restricted to the south Wales valleys. In the early years of this decade he entered a strange period in the doldrums, in which he retained his title but not much else. Observers were beginning to wonder if he was just another mediocre British boxer hanging on to a devalued (World Boxing Organisation) title. At one point, after several lacklustre bouts, his promoter, allegedly told him to sack his father and bring in a more experienced trainer.
Calzaghe reluctantly heeded the advice, only to reverse the decision almost straight away. Then, just as he was getting back on track, he went through a bitter divorce from his wife, with whom he has two sons, Conner and Joe Jr.
His mind was elsewhere when he fought Kabary Salem in October 2004, and he was knocked down for only the second time as a professional. 'At the end of the day I beat the guy,' Calzaghe recalls, 'but he was a sparring partner, let's face it, I should have taken care of business with him easily. I got caught with stupid punches because I wasn't into it. You think you are, but you're not. I was preoccupied with the divorce, money issues, and the courts.'
It was not until 18 successful title defences after the Eubank fight that he managed to break through to a much wider public. In March 2006 he faced Jeff Lacy, an undefeated 28-year-old American whom many pundits believed to be the Mike Tyson of the middleweights. Powerful, muscular and aggressive, Lacy came to Manchester to end Calzaghe's time in the top flight.
Here was a big-name American, the kind that some observers had accused Calzaghe of avoiding. But, a few weeks before the fight, Calzaghe suffered a recurrence of a hand injury. Since damaging his right wrist in 1989, he has collected a medical catalogue of sprains, fractures and breaks in and around the hands. He fought half of his bout with Richard Reid with a broken metacarpal, for example, and eight rounds against Evans Ashira with the same injury, effectively winning one-handed.
Over the years his style has had to become less about power punching and more focused on intensity. Now, with Lacy awaiting him, he was on the point of withdrawing from the fight. It was Enzo who persuaded him to stick with it.
Enzo has a way with words. They may not always ring familiar to the human ear, but he has the kind of conviction in his voice of which even the toughest take notice. When Tyson blanked Calzaghe at a fight event, it was Enzo who gave the heavyweight an ear-bashing. It was Enzo, too, who took Hopkins to task at the London press conference, informing him at length that his son had his number.
The Lacy fight turned out to be Calzaghe's greatest night. Held at the MEN Arena in Manchester, there was a raw edge to the atmosphere. In such conditions are reputations made and broken.
'My dad is a great caller of fights,' says Calzaghe, who by now, some way into our conversation in the weights room, is probably at risk of exposure, if not frostbite. 'And he said, "Joe this is going to be one of your easiest fights." I thought, "What are you talking about?" He said, "Joe, from the first minute of the round you will fornicating destroy this guy." He hit me with his hardest shot and it didn't flinch me.'
I ask Enzo if he is ever worried that his son might get hurt. 'Bollocks,' is his considered response. 'I know the guy's ability. He can adapt to anything in the ring. Why should I worry?'
Barry McGuigan judged Calzaghe's performance the best from a British boxer he had ever seen, and no less an authority than Sugar Ray Leonard described it as a 'demonstration of pure boxing ... a boxing clinic, masterful'. Lacy had accused the Newbridge southpaw of being a 'slapper', someone who hit ineffectually with the inside of his glove, but over the course of 12 rounds the American experienced the full range of the Welshman's punching and it featured precious few slaps. Lacy was beaten up with the relentless invention that borders disturbingly, in boxing, on the beautiful.
'Everything came together on that fight, it was better than knocking him out,' is how Calzaghe puts it, in an oddly matter-of-fact tone. 'I humiliated him.'
But although he had impressed Irish and American boxing legends and mesmerised the watching crowd, Calzaghe did not manage to sway the British public. That year he came only third in the Sports Personality of the Year vote, which was won by Zara Phillips. The Welshman claimed that he was not bothered but, like all the best boxers, he was merely concealing the hurt. Once more he was the bemused witness to British sporting priorities.
The fight last year against Mikkel Kessler, which made him undisputed world champion, finally did the trick with the BBC poll, although Lewis Hamilton would have walked away with the award had he not lost the Formula One title. The fact is most viewers have never seen Calzaghe fight, and that is a particular shame in the case of the Kessler fight. The esteem in which each boxer held the other was matched only by their efforts to defeat their opponent.
'You saw the mutual respect before the fight and after the fight,' Calzaghe says. 'In America they slag each other off at the press conference then get in the ring and don't do anything. When I was younger I used to mouth off a lot, but it wasn't me. I just did it because I thought that's what you had to do: Naz [Prince Naseem Hamed] was doing it, Benn and Eubank were doing it. But people called me arrogant and I thought, "Well maybe I'm being somebody I'm not." All this "I'm going to knock you out", I don't say it. There's no need to say it.'
Calzaghe does not really have to say anything. His record speaks for itself. He has won all 44 fights of his professional career (32 by stopping his opponent). He plans to make it 45 with Hopkins and then have one more fight before retiring with his record intact. But won't allegedly try to talk him out of that?
'Oh yeah,' Calzaghe says, 'but I'm a big boy. He's a promoter and like any promoter he wants to make money. And I'm good business, so he'll probably say that, but the final decision is mine and in my heart I know I want to retire. Let's hope greed doesn't get the better of me.'
Noticing that he is now pulling his tracksuit arms over his frozen hands, we go outside to the chill February afternoon in the Prince of Wales industrial estate, where it's not so cold. From the valleys to Vegas, the temperature can only get hotter
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Max Molyneux
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 7084
- Joined: 16 Aug 2004, 16:53
He sure took Winky and Taylor to school didn't he.Eraserhead wrote:The more I hear Joe and Enzo Calzaghe talk about this fight, the more I'm starting to think Bernard Hopkins is going to take them both to school. This fight's getting closer and closer in my eyes as each day passes. I've got this niggling doubt that Joe and Enzo could be waaaay out of their depth here
Calzaghe, fights better when you favour the other guy so keep favouring Hopkins.
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Max Molyneux
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 7084
- Joined: 16 Aug 2004, 16:53
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND7YKS1KJrM
Joe does look bigger at Light Heavy, could he of been quite weight drained at Super Middle.
Joe does look bigger at Light Heavy, could he of been quite weight drained at Super Middle.
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MightyWarrior
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 13284
- Joined: 23 Jan 2003, 14:01
When you look at how long he stayed at the weight and the diet that he had to endure in the run up to a fight you know he hard to work very hard to make the 168 lbs limit.Max Molyneux wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND7YKS1KJrM
Joe does look bigger at Light Heavy, could he of been quite weight drained at Super Middle.
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Eraserhead
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 554
- Joined: 14 Dec 2007, 18:46
Is it any surprise Joe Calzaghe has hand trouble when his father slaps the pads down on his fists like a hyper-active kid who's just overdosed on Smarties? I really don't get why he does that.Max Molyneux wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND7YKS1KJrM
Joe does look bigger at Light Heavy, could he of been quite weight drained at Super Middle.
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Max Molyneux
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 7084
- Joined: 16 Aug 2004, 16:53
He slaps the pads on Mac's hands too, Roger Mayweather did It on Floyds too.Eraserhead wrote:Is it any surprise Joe Calzaghe has hand trouble when his father slaps the pads down on his fists like a hyper-active kid who's just overdosed on Smarties? I really don't get why he does that.Max Molyneux wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND7YKS1KJrM
Joe does look bigger at Light Heavy, could he of been quite weight drained at Super Middle.
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jamesmcdonnell
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 45233
- Joined: 12 Nov 2003, 06:11
Looks like Calzaghes keeping it real before the fight by avoiding all the bright lights of Vegas. We could really do with JC winning this one after Hatton and Clintons beat downsJoe Calzaghe refuses to gamble
Apr 11 2008 by Phil Blanche, Western Mail
JOE CALZAGHE is living clean in his ambition to hit the boxing jackpot in America’s gambling mecca.
Calzaghe arrived in Las Vegas last weekend ahead of his April 19 super-fight with the veteran Bernard Hopkins – but the Welshman won’t be setting foot inside a casino as he puts the finishing touches to his detailed training plan for the mega-light-heavyweight showdown.
“I won’t be going on the slot machines,” said Calzaghe. “I don’t mind a bit of a gamble, but I will stay away from that. I’m chilling out in a villa a few miles away from the strip.
“You don’t want to be around that sort of scene, so I’m trying to keep things as real as possible, as if I was at home.
“Obviously, before the fight you have the head-to-head and all the mayhem, but I’ll keep it as chilled as possible.
“There won’t be any helicopter trips or anything like that. I don’t like heights so, unless I need to drop a few pounds on the day of the weigh-in, I’ll leave that alone!”
Calzaghe admits he is loving living the ‘American dream’ as he fights Stateside for the first time in his distinguished career.
Some would argue it has been a long time coming, but Calzaghe says he has been blown away by the reception he has received out in America.
“Every time I go to America, I’m well received, especially after what I did to Jeff Lacy,” he said.
“The way I manhandled him got me the utmost respect from the journalists out there, especially the ones that doubted me.
“Now they realise I am the real deal and the best at super-middleweight.
“They know this is a tough fight for Hopkins and they view me as the favourite, as they should.
“There’s no extra pressure, though. I’ve been there and done it all so I’ve just got to do my thing.”
Insisting that fighting above his usual 12st limit is an advantage – “it gives me more punching power” – Calzaghe is happy to finally be in the Nevada sun.
“It was so cold in the gym back home that it’s nice to get some sun on my back,” he said.
“It’s a big challenge outside my comfort zone, fighting someone who had 10 years as an unbeaten champion in his own backyard.
“People ask about my plans for Hopkins, but he has to make plans for me. If I’m at my best it’s game over.
“He talks about ending people’s careers, but had to fight Robert Allen three times, Antwun Echols twice and Jermain Taylor twice.
“He has got a habit of fighting people two or three times. He hasn’t ended anyone’s career, while people should look at Lacy to see what I can do in that respect.
“Hopefully Hopkins will come to play, but, whether it’s a slow tactical fight or a war, I’m going to win this fight.
“It’s every fighter’s dream to be in this situation, fighting in Las Vegas and seeing your name in lights. I’ve been fighting since the age of nine and I’m no different.”
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Khaosai-Galaxy
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 2739
- Joined: 29 Apr 2007, 12:15
well saidTerry D wrote:I always get amused at 'I'm not thinking of defeat' headlines (not to slag the article, which I liked). Surely few fighters sit there thinking 'I'm gonna get battered' in fights at this level.
Well said Again..So it was his dream? Then why did he say for 10 years that he wasn't bothered about fighting in America?
If only Calzaghe fought the best sooner.. and not too late
oh well
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MightyWarrior
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 13284
- Joined: 23 Jan 2003, 14:01
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Rocky Balboa
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 1851
- Joined: 24 Jan 2004, 16:38
I was just going to say the same thing!MightyWarrior wrote:Not unless you're fighting an early Mike Tyson that is.Terry D wrote:I always get amused at 'I'm not thinking of defeat' headlines (not to slag the article, which I liked). Surely few fighters sit there thinking 'I'm gonna get battered' in fights at this level.
Joe Calzaghe: Hopkins' style might frustrate me
timesonline.co.uk
In this exclusive diary, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year opens his heart ahead of his fight against Bernard Hopkins
Joe Calzaghe meets Miss USA, Rachel Smith
Joe Calzaghe
Sunday, April 6
If I stand at the end of the garden out back, I can see it: the Strip, the bright lights, the hotels and casinos and the Las Vegas that people know. But I’m 10 miles up the road in a quiet part of the city, away from all of the excitement, which is just what I want. The villa I’m renting here is nice, with an outdoor swimming pool and Jacuzzi, a pool table upstairs and a large living room with a big TV screen - of course, I forgot all the DVDs and CDs that I intended to take with me.
The alarm on my mobile phone didn’t go off yesterday morning. Me and my girlfriend, Jo-Emma, both had alarms set for 5am because the car taking me to Heathrow was picking me up at 5.45am, so I woke up at 5.55am, with Dad banging on the back door, all ready to go. There’s just my dad, my uncle Sergio and Nathan Cleverly, my sparring partner and pal from Blackwood, who have come out here with me. I don’t have an entourage and don’t want to be caught up in something I’m not used to, which is why I’m not staying on the Strip. I’m trying to keep to my routine. As soon as I got here last night I went for a run. I didn’t want to after a long flight because I was knackered but I pushed myself and I pushed myself again today, doing seven miles, which is longer than I usually run but it’s not as hilly as back home. Then I went to the gym at about 3pm and everything is good because there are no people around to bother me. I want to stay relaxed but I have to keep my focus, so staying out here as opposed to being on the Strip is ideal.
Monday, April 7
I don’t really think about the fight at this stage, I just think about my training and my conditioning. Do you know how many times I’ve watched Bernard Hopkins fight? Once, against Winky Wright in his last fight. I watched it today because I was bored, so I had a look to refresh my mind, see if anything concerns me about him or if he has anything special. To be honest, if he wasn’t Bernard Hopkins and I watched him fight, I wouldn’t think much of him at all. All I see is a guy who’s adequate and does things fairly well but nothing exceptional. If the fight was in Wales, it wouldn’t even be a contest. The contest for me is fighting in America for the first time, outside my comfort zone, at a new weight, 12st 7lb, and not 12st. That’s the challenge, though Hopkins has a style that might frustrate me. He’s defensive and holds a lot. He’s also dirty and does things in a subtle way, like when he butted Wright and opened a bad cut over his left eye. It didn’t look blatant but I’m sure it was. Joe Cortez is a fair referee, however, and I’m happy he’s officiating. He refereed my bout with Chris Eubank in 1997 when I became super-middleweight champion, which might be an omen.
Tuesday, April 8
I didn’t wake up until 8am and, gradually, my body is adjusting to the time difference. I felt less lethargic today and I’ll reap the benefits of having come here two weeks early. My weight is good and I’m eating well, better than I would at home. Nothing against Jo-Emma’s cooking but Sergio is a qualified chef and my dad’s useful in the kitchen, too. I’m eating pasta, chicken, salad, even chocolate, which is unheard of this close to a fight. For me, the fighting is easy compared to making the weight because getting down to 12st is painful after doing it for 14 years. Not having to shed the last 7lb for this fight will make a huge difference in terms of my strength and power.
Wednesday, April 9
I’d prefer not to have any other commitments until the week of the fight, when I’ll have the head-to-head press conference next Wednesday, and an open workout on Tuesday. But this is a big fight, so there have been conference calls, radio and newspaper interviews and lots of stuff going on because HBO have paid a lot of money to put this fight on and everybody wants their pound of meat. I did a public workout today at Planet Hollywood, a couple of rounds of shadowboxing and four or five rounds on the pads with my dad. Quite a few people showed up and the reaction was good. There are tickets still to be sold, so we have to bang the drum. I spent an hour with HBO, being interviewed for their preshow segment on the night of the fight, but there’s only so much you can accommodate in terms of promotional work and you have to draw the line somewhere. If I did everything I’ve been asked to do, it would f*** with my training and f*** with my mind. The showbiz and celebrity side of it goes against my ethics. All I’m here to do is win a fight.
Thursday, April 10
The guy who owns the gym I’m working in is a top poker player and owns a blind dog that can do the Ali shuffle. He’s a husky dog with cataracts in both eyes but he can sense his way around the yard. When Tony brought out a pack of meat and some snacks the dog came running to him and did the Ali shuffle, all four paws back and forth.
Hopkins did a public workout today at his gym in Pasadena and mouthed off some more about what he’s going to do to me. In my experience, dogs who bark don’t bite. I’m always more worried about a dog who doesn’t bark. Some of the stuff Hopkins has come out with is laughable. We did a face-off at each stop on a press tour several weeks back and he’d be saying things like: “I’m going to make you piss blood . . . Say goodbye to your babies . . . Are you ready to die?” I just looked at him, smiled and said: “Do you actually believe what you’re saying?” He’s saying this to a man who’s had more fights as an amateur and professional than he’s had. It might work on a 20-year-old but, obviously, he feels he needs to get some sort of advantage. It’s not worked but it’s interesting he feels the need to play this game.
Friday, April 11
Tom Jones invited me to one of his concerts at the MGM Grand earlier in the week but I’m in the gym at 8pm every evening, because this is the time I’ll be stepping into the ring. I would love to have gone to see Tom because he’s a big boxing fan and he’ll be singing the national anthem in the ring before my fight. We got together a few days before I boxed Sakio Bika in October 2006 in Manchester, and he said I ought to come out here to make my name in America. I don’t feel I have anything to prove. I’ve been a champion for 11 years and I beat Mikkel Kessler, the best opponent I’ve ever faced, in my last fight, but Tom was right: you have to come out and perform in America to make the fans here take notice.
Saturday, April 12
I’ve trained well and I’m relaxed. As I’ve got older, I’ve got more mature and my mindset’s different. The Jeff Lacy fight lifted a weight off my back because I’d never really shown what I could do before that fight and I still had my doubters. But I beat him and suddenly people had to admit: “You know, he really can box.”
I’m waiting for my sons, Joe and Connor, to arrive today with Jo-Emma. I know they’re excited about watching their dad box in Vegas. Connor says to me: “Dad, I don’t want you to retire, I want you always to be world champion.” But I’m near the end now. I feel in my heart that I want to let it go and I know this is my last year. I’ve done it all. I got into boxing to become undisputed champion and the win over Kessler gave me that. What else can I do? I could have a big fight with Roy Jones Jr or Kelly Pavlik, the world middleweight champion, but that’s down the road. Now I’m focused only on Hopkins.
Joe Calzaghe v Bernard Hopkins, Saturday, Setanta Sports 1, from 10.30pm
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MightyWarrior
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 13284
- Joined: 23 Jan 2003, 14:01
http://www.clubcall.com/index.jsp?storyID=337058
Wishful thinking fwom Fwankie
Warren's entertainment plea to Hopkins
20080417 11:20
Joe Calzaghe's promoter allegedly has urged Bernard Hopkins to ditch his defensive style and fight in 'the right way' on Saturday.
The request was made at the big fight head-to-head at Planet Hollywood on Wednesday which passed off without any incident as the Calzaghe camp hope the 43-year-old Philadelphian's tactics do not turn the light heavyweight bout into a non-event at the Thomas & Mack Center ring in Las Vegas at the weekend.
Warren urged Hopkins to come out on the front foot against Calzaghe and back up his own claims of being a legend in the boxing world.
He said: "I'm confident Bernard will come to fight. Legends don't fight on the back foot. He says he's a legend so he's got to prove it by fighting the right way in the ring."
Calzaghe has already suggested that Hopkins' age could work against him during their fight and the Welshman's coach and father, Enzo, stirred things up by presenting the American with a walking stick during Wednesday afternoon's meeting
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DG.
- Heavyweight
