Undefeated: The Joe Calzaghe Story

Joe Calzaghe was born on March 23, 1972 in London. His father is Sardinian, and his mother Welsh, and his family moved to Wales when he was 2. He took up boxing under the tutelage of his father Enzo at age 9, and unlike so many Father-and-Son teams in boxing, Enzo remained his trainer for Calzaghe's entire career. In a 120 fight amateur career, he won a handful of British titles, and beat future heavyweight champion Chris Byrd. He turned pro in October 1993, under the promotional aegis of Mickey Duff.

By 1996 Calzaghe had amassed a 16-0 record as a super middleweight (168lbs), crowned by a knockout win over 21-0 Mark Delany. Many in British boxing circles had come to look at him as one to watch, and he had moved from Duff to promoter Frank Warren.

Standing 5'11" with a 73" reach, Calzaghe was a southpaw with quick hands, solid boxing skills, and an impressively high work rate. His boxing style was geared around befuddling opponents with fleet movement and pouring on lightning fast punches in bunches from the angles, and to switch to defense in an eye blink. However, Calzaghe's hands were brittle, making him reluctant to commit to his punches. "The Pridge of Wales" packed real power when he wanted to, but his caution with his hands led to critics labeling him a "slapper."

By 1997, Calzaghe was a contender for the WBO Super Middleweight crown, which has long been the de facto championship for the many excellent middleweights that come out of the UK. The champion, Steve Collins, elected to retire before facing Calzaghe, leaving the title vacant. Joe Calzaghe would contend with the defining British middleweight of the early and mid-1990s for the belt: 31 year old, 45-2-2 Chris Eubank. Although past his prime, Eubank was still a dangerous fighter. Calzaghe knocked him down in the opening rounds, and went on to pile up a lopsided points victory. Despite dominating the scorecards, it was a tough fight and even as late as 2006, Calzaghe was calling it the toughest of his career. It was an impressive start to what was to prove a sterling career.

The Reigning Champion

Joe defended his title twice by knockout before meeting his first serious contender in 1999, in the form of hard-hitting former champion, 26-1-1 Robin Reid. Reid had ducked Calzaghe and a cross-Britain unification match when he held the WBC title, and Calzaghe had sworn to make him pay for both that and Reid's arrogant trash-talking. It was one of those fights where the results depended on what you liked seeing from a fighter: Reid did land the harder punches, but Calzaghe landed a lot more shots and did a lot more damage with them. He won by a clean 4 Round margin on 2 scorecards.

After another pair of defenses against solid, but unremarkable fighters, Calzaghe met Omar Sheika in 2000. A Palestinian-American, Sheika was a fierce puncher who had just scored a pair of wins over a faded Simon Brown and a future light heavyweight champion, Glen Johnson. Calzaghe busted Sheika up, ending the fight on cuts in the 5th, and handing Sheika his first big fight loss. Next came his personal friend and former champ Richie Woodhall, knocking him down in the 9th and stopping him in the 10th.

2001 opened with undefeated German Mario Veit, who Calzaghe knocked out in a single round. In 2002, he met American and former champion Charles "The Hatchet" Brewer, and won a huge points victory over him. In 2003, he fought another American and former champion, Byron Mitchell. Mitchell put Calzaghe on the canvas for this first tim in his career, but "The Pride of Wales" quickly came back and knocked him out in 2.

Calzaghe met Mario Veit in a rematch in 2005. Now 45-1, the German had learned a great deal over the intervening 4 years, but not enough to beat the Welshman: Calzaghe stopped him in 6.

Struggling for Respect

By 2006, Calzaghe was one of the longest-reigning champions in boxing. He had held his WBO title for almost a decade, and defended the belt an impressive 17 times. However, he was not widely accepted or respected in the United States. The American press is reluctant at best to accept the claim of a fighter from Europe to be "the man" in any division, especially when that claim conflicts with even the most specious claim of an American or Mexican fighter. The critics from across the pond called Calzaghe a slapper, and a protected fighter who never fought outside of Britain. Of course, the latter criticism as unwarranted, as Calzaghe has never been accused of jobbing another fighter in a stinky decision. This accusation would be better directed at German quasi-pacifist Sven Ottke.

The result was that a showdown fight finally came to be: 40-0 Joe Calzaghe vs. 21-0 IBF Champion Jeff Lacy. Lacy was a fierce banger who was being likened to a middleweight Mike Tyson, and had already beaten both Reid and Sheika. In March 2006 in Manchester, UK, the two fighters met and Calzaghe put on a display that should have silenced his critics. Calzaghe utterly dominated Lacy, busting his nose in the 1st, cutting him in the 4th, and finally knocking him down in the 12th. He won a big Unanimous Decision, and walked away that night as the WBO-IBF champion.

However, his critics were, if anything, only angered by the win. Rather than acknowledge Calzaghe's greatness, they stooped to deriding Lacy as an unproven nobody. Calzaghe ignored them and went on to beat tough Saiko Bika and The Contender's Peter Manfredo, Jr. Along the way he relinquished the IBF belt.

November 2007 brought Calzaghe to another mega-fight, this time with a strong puncher from Europe, the 39-0 Danish WBC-WBA champion Mikkel Kessler. Calzaghe came on strong, but was stymied in the 4th when Kessler tagged him with two good uppercuts. Calzaghe came back and won Rounds 5 and 6, when Kessler came out in the 7th and tried to break through. He landed several hard punches, but Calzaghe kept swinging and simply smothered him with more than 100 punches thrown. The fighters continued to go toe-to-toe, but Calzaghe's speed and punch output won out over Kessler's strength and power. He won a decisive Unanimous Decision victory. Once again, Calzaghe's critics in America denied Calzaghe his laurels through the route of denying that his opponent was really that good.

However, with the win over Kessler, Calzaghe had won all four of the major titles in the ring. Although he would relinquish the IBF, WBC, and WBA belts rather than pay onerous sanctioning fees and meet the demands of 4 separate mandatory challengers, the fact remains that he had not lost any of those titles in the ring. Calzaghe stood triumphant as the Undisputed, Undefeated World Champion.

B-Hop

The hype finally brought Calzaghe into conflict with another Hall of Fame middleweight and light heavyweight: the ageless wonder Bernard Hopkins. After losing the Undisputed World Middleweight Title to Jermain Taylor, Hopkins wowed the world by going up to 175lbs and beating Antonio Tarver. 48-4-1 and 43 years old, the master boxer met 44-0 and 36 years old Joe Calzaghe in a Las Vegas mega-fight in April 2008. Despite being knocked down in the 1st, Calzaghe's combination of work rate and speed proved to be too much for Hopkins, who at 43 was no longer able to fight every minute of every round. Hopkins was reduced to throwing only one punch at a time, and using clinches to stymie Calzaghe's attack. The fight was scored a Split Decision win for Calzage, but in reality it wasn't that close.

Now Calzaghe had beaten the man at 175lbs, although he could not claim a light heavyweight championship as Hopkins had vacated his belts. The critics resorted to their time-tested counter: Hopkins was old and washed-up, and would have annihilated Calzaghe five years earlier. They were finally silenced only when Hopkins shocked the world again by knocking out middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik.

In November Joe Calzaghe met Roy Jones, Jr at 175lbs. Once again, he was knocked down in the 1st (this time because Jones hit Calzaghe with his forearm), but bounced back to thoroughly dominate his opponent. After this win, Calzaghe spent a few months considering his options, and eventually announced his retirement in February 2009.

Legacy

Joe Calzaghe held his 168lbs title for more than 10 years, defending it 21 times in all. He retired as a 46-0 undefeated fighter. He belongs to two very small clubs. The first is that of boxers with more than 20 successive title defenses. He is tied by Ricardo Lopez of Mexico, and surpassed only by Joe Louis (25) and Dariuz Michalczewski (23).

He also stands as one of a very few group of fighters to retire as an undefeated champion. While other fighters have retired undefeated, only Rocky Marciano surpasses Calzaghe's undefeated streak at the time of retirement, having retired at 48-0.

Sources: boxrec.com; live fight footage; YouTube; HBO; The Ring