A Boxing Memory: Joe Calzaghe

A Boxing Memory: Joe Calzaghe

Joe Calzaghe is an anomaly in boxing. Very few fighters leave the sport undefeated. He did. Very few fighters leave the sport on their own terms. He did. All retired fighters seemingly return. He didn’t.

Calzaghe was 36 and undefeated in 46 fights when he decided to retire in 2009. Despite spending too long in the relative obscurity of his WBO reign against a mixed bag of opposition, Calzaghe can quite rightfully be considered one of the greatest British fighters of all time.

Calzaghe was born in a Hammersmith Hospital in 1972, his father Enzo moved his family to Sardinia before they returned to UK soil and settled in Pentwynmawr, Newbridge in South Wales. Despite his boxing interest as a teenager, Calzaghe was bullied at school and it was only when he was 15 and his body started to develop did the bullying stop. An interest in boxing was formed when he was just 8, and he joined his first boxing club two years later. Calzaghe had over 120 amateur fights, losing only ten of those fights and won 4 schoolboy ABA titles and followed that up with three senior ABA titles at three different weights.

The professional journey started in 1993 on the Lennox Lewis Frank Bruno undercard, by 1995 Calzaghe was the British super-middleweight champion and when he moved over to Frank Warren a year later the chase for a world title began. In 1997 a fight with the WBO champion Steve Collins was arranged before Collins withdrew injured and promptly retired and the former champion Chris Eubank stepped in at short notice to fight Calzaghe in Sheffield for the vacant WBO title. Eubank was on the floor in the opening seconds and despite a late rally, he was a heavy loser on the scorecards. A tough fight for the new champion but not a close one. Calzaghe never did lose that title in the ring.

Sadly much of his career was spent in the shadows, defending his WBO title against inferior opponents that did little for his reputation elsewhere in the boxing world. The big fights never seemed to happen and repeated hand injuries badly hampered his performances. A fight against the former world champion Robin Reid in 1999 was too close for comfort. Reid was convinced he had won. Many sympathised and believed Calzaghe got away with one when the split decision went in his favour. Reid said boxing politics got in the way of a rematch, and to this day believes he was robbed. For different reasons, both Calzaghe and Reid needed that rematch.

Calzaghe was losing career momentum and an awful performance against the negative David Starie when he had American TV exposure ended in boos. There was more than talk about changing his inner circle and replacing his father with another trainer or bringing someone else in to assist, but Calzaghe eventually resisted the calls to make the change and he stayed with his father for his entire career.

While the long search for unification fights went on there were notable wins over the former world champions Richie Woodhall and Charles Brewer. But Calzaghe wanted more. He had to climb off the canvas against Byron Mitchell in the opening round before recovering to blast out the American in the next round.

There were issues with motivation, the lack of a big fight materialising the constant battle with his injuries and when he broke his hand in a routine defence against the Kenyan Evans Ashira in 2005, the signs were more than ominous. But boxing works in mysterious ways, now a fighter ready to be taken in the eyes of some, finally, Calzaghe got what he wanted. What he needed.

The unbeaten American Jeff Lacy was boxing’s next big thing. With comparisons to Mike Tyson, Lacy was unbeaten in twenty-one fights and the IBF super-middleweight champion of the world. Lacy was tempted to Manchester to fight Calzaghe in a big unification clash in a fight he was heavily favoured to win. Probably for the first time in his career, Calzaghe had a fear that he might lose, many thought he wouldn’t even last the distance. Very few gave him a chance of beating the big punching American. On both sides of the Atlantic, Calzaghe was a significant betting outsider. But the naysayers seemed to inspire Calzaghe and he trained accordingly. But with fight week approaching Calzaghe’s injury woes appeared once again. An injury to his right wrist threatened the fight, but when his dad said, “If you pull out the chance won’t come again.” Calzaghe said that was all he needed to hear.

The Lacy fight was Calzaghe at his peak. At 33, this was the moment he had been waiting for. Lacy was never in it, and while he did incredibly well to last the distance, his bravery and the lack of intervention to stop the fight almost certainly ruined him as a fighter. Lacy should have been spared those last few rounds of relentless punishment, any chance of victory had long since gone, and being saved for another day was lost on the people that mattered.

“Like a man locked in a burning house and engulfed in flames but still trying to find a way out, Lacy refused to concede. Lacy may pay heavily for his boldness. I would be surprised if he were ever the same again because this was a ferocious hiding, a beating more one-sided than any I can recall in a contest of this stature during my two decades reporting on boxing around the world.” Boxing News said of Lacy and the fight itself. They were right, Lacy was never ever the same again.

Boxing News added, “Calzaghe’s victory over American Jeff Lacy was beyond emphatic. He nailed himself down as the best super-middle in the world and undoubtedly the finest since Roy Jones ruled the weight 10 years ago.”

It had come far too late in his career but the recognition had finally come. Calzaghe enjoyed a true Indian Summer in his career. In many ways, an even better win came three fights later when he beat the brilliant Danish fighter Mikkel Kessler who came to Cardiff as the WBA and the WBC champion, he to found Calzaghe too good for him in 2007. Kessler was unbeaten in thirty-nine fights in a unification fight between two unbeaten champions. It was a much closer fight than the fight with Lacy, but Calzaghe still won handily on the cards and it was a statement-making way to sign out his super-middleweight days which included twenty-one defences of his WBO world super-middleweight title.

Calzaghe had just two fights left in his career and signed out with two trips to America in 2008 to fight two living legends in Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones up at light-heavyweight. Calzaghe overcame first-round knockdowns in both fights to beat Hopkins and Jones on points, the close win over Hopkins gave him his second Ring Magazine belt at a second weight. The win over the admittedly faded Jones was the last fight of his career and Calzaghe finally announced his retirement in February 2009 and has wisely resisted all calls to fight again. As Calzaghe said in his many retirement interviews he had achieved everything he could and wanted to. It took time, but he got there in the end.