‘I train the same way as I've always trained, even before I was champion. That's the difference, I train like a challenger’ Joe Calzaghe CBE
Joseph William Calzaghe was born on 23 March 1972 in West London, but soon relocated to the South Wales at an early age, where he started his fistic journey at the age of nine. During an amateur spanning 120 contests, the Newbridge favourite won four schoolboy titles, but more impressively won three ABA titles on the bounce between 1990-1993 in the welterweight, light middleweight and middleweight categories. As a professional his record was immaculate at 46-0, taking on the best of the best at super middleweight and later light heavyweight. British Vintage Boxing asked the undefeated Welshman his three most memorable fights.
“Ahhhhh. Three? That’s a tough one, because there’s probably six or seven. Ok. If I had to say the most memorable victory, that would have to be the Jeff Lacy fight.” Calzaghe recalled the night up in Manchester when he fought at 2am to cater for a US audience which was convinced he would be a sacrificial lamb to their younger powerhouse world champion.
“The Lacy fight was penned in for November 2005, but I broke my hand against Evans Ashira in September and it was a pretty bad break. I was looking forward to the Lacy fight because, at that point I’d been WBO (world super middleweight) champion for eight years and had beaten seven or so former world champions and felt like I was stagnating. The Lacy fight gave me hunger. Because he had the IBF belt, it was like I was challenging from scratch for a world title and I also knew that fight would define me for what I’d achieved in my career to date. Also, a lot of the media were slagging me off saying I wasn’t performing at my best, so this was a great opportunity to prove how good I was.
“About 10 weeks before the fight I got a hand injury and I went to Harley Street and they said I needed to rest my hand. Bearing in mind, if I rested my hand, the fight might have disappeared and not come back. I remember telling dad about Harley Street and that I needed to pull out and he said, ‘You fucking what?? They’re going to call you the biggest fucking chicken ever!’
“Our relationship was more than boxer and trainer, it was father and son, and he always told it the way it was. People lie when they say you don’t read comments about yourself, because you do and at the time everyone was saying I was going to get beaten and knocked out. Dad had said if I fought Lacy, I’d dominate him and it would be one sided from the first to the last second. My dad knew my style more than anyone and when he made those comments about pulling out, it was the father and son relationship that took over and that sparked something off inside of me. I couldn’t pull out. First and foremost, I always wanted to make my dad happy.
“For the first time, I was an underdog going into a fight, even when I went in against Eubank for the title I was the bookies favourite, but against Lacy, ninety percent of the people thought I was going to lose. They were branding Lacy as the super middleweight Mike Tyson and there was only a handful of people who thought I’d beat him, including my dad and Frank Warren.
“The fight was on the 4th March and we went up to Manchester on the 1st. Where I live is quite rural and it was snowing and beautiful. It was like a lovely setting to remind me that all the pressure had been removed from me. It was like a surreal peace to say, ‘This is your time.’ Even when I was injured and couldn’t punch, I was still up in the mornings and training hard. Physically, I knew I was in the best shape of my life. Even at 34, I’d never been as fit as I was for that Lacy fight and that was down to the challenger’s mentality.
“We went up with my little entourage, which included me, my dad and my uncle Sergio and it was as if I’d flipped things around mentally. I was so calm and Lacy looked really tense, as it was his first big test. He was fighting an ageing champion, so there was a lot of pressure on him to knock me out and make me wave the white flag. Instead, I was thinking, after all these years of hard work, this was my time to shine and finally show America and the world what I could do, and to take this opportunity with both hands.
“That fight, I felt I was unbeatable. Physically, psychologically, mentally. I went to thr front of the arena and the lights came on. Bang. The adrenalin kicked in and I thought, ‘Yep. This is it.’ With regards to the fight itself, it was a blur. It started at such a fast pace and I could feel that, but with my fitness I felt I could have gone 15 rounds. Just like dad said, ‘You’ll hit him four or five times, then you’re going to spin round and he’s going to swing into air,’ and that’s what happened from the first to the last round. I could see he was hurt, but I didn’t load up. I just stuck to what I’d been told and was just enjoying such a big unification fight in front of a lit-up crowd.
Calzaghe vs Lacy
“That’s the thing though. You go into the biggest fight of your life and not only win, but win the way you want to perform. It’s easy for people to then say after, Lacy wasn’t all that and he was hype, but before they said I would get knocked out in three rounds. All that was important to me was when my dad said to me after, ‘I fucking told you so!’”
In the build up to the fight, Lacy’s entourage claimed Calzaghe would pose no problems because he simply slapped with his punches. In the post-fight interview in the ring, Jim Rosenthal said to Calzaghe, ‘Not bad for an old slapper, eh?’
Calzaghe moved onto his second most memorable fight against Chris Eubank on 11 October 1997, for the vacant WBO world super middleweight title. “I was a big fan of Eubank, Benn and Watson and I knew they were dangerous guys. Steve Collins was the WBO super middleweight champion at the time and retired just before the fight and that’s when me and Eubank stepped up to fight for the vacant title. I’ll be honest, I was more nervous of fighting Eubank than Collins. Steve Collins was a come forward fighter and I was lot more confident of fighting him than Eubank’s style.
“I remember at the press conference that I said I’d knock him out in three rounds and he looked at me and said, ‘I’m going to take you to a place you’ve never been before.’ I said, ‘Whatever.’
“I got to the ring not far off midnight, but I’d been doing pads with dad from about 8pm, because I thought I’d be on earlier, but it got pushed back. So, if I’m honest, I was pretty fucked before I’d got in the ring! Come the first round of the fight and I remember dropping him and thinking, ‘I’m going to take him out early,’ but it panned out the way he said. He took me into the trenches and by far, that fight was the most exhausting I’d ever experienced in my career.
“After six rounds I was shattered. Will, hard work and heart got me through that fight, because I was running on empty. I didn’t pace myself after knocking him down, because I didn’t have the experience to have a breather and use my jab, instead I was loading up against a very strong guy and as the rounds went on, he did take me to that place he said he would. After, I’ve always said thank you for that, because I learnt more in that one fight than every single fight before.”
Calzaghe vs Eubank
Calzaghe won the title by unanimous decision and was about to embark on an epic title defence run. He recalled. “Hearing Michael Buffer say, ‘And the new,’ was an amazing moment, but the next day I could barely move my arms because of the lactic acid. That was a reminder of what I’d been involved in the night before and a reminder that it’s harder to keep the title than wear it.’”
Reflecting on early knockdowns, Calzaghe recalled his clash with American, Byron Mitchell on 28 June 2003, where the Italian Dragon came off the canvas for the first time in his life, during in the second round. ‘When I got knocked down, it was the first time in my entire life I’d got dropped. I started boxing at nine years old, had over 100 amateur fights, never got dropped in sparring and here I was in my thirteenth defence getting up and looking at the referee as he counted, then looking at my dad’s face. He looked shocked. I’d got caught while throwing a left hook and he caught me with a short right and I didn’t have time to think. It was more a case of, ‘Fuck. What happened there?’
“Thankfully, I had a great chin, great powers of recovery and great fitness. Shortly after the ref had done the count, my head cleared and my reaction wasn’t to hold or run, but to go at him. We had a shootout and he missed me by millimetres and thank god I connected with him before he connected with me. I started throwing as many punches as I could, but I have to say, I was pretty relieved when that fight was stopped!”
Calzaghe’s third, most memorable fight was against the Viking Warrior, Mikkel Kessler (39-0 at the time), on 2 November 2007 at the Cardiff Principality Stadium, in front of 50,000 people, with Calzaghe putting his WBO strap on the line and the great Dane putting out his WBC credentials for grabs. “The Kessler fight is something I pushed to have, because after Lacy, I had a few defences and I knew I was coming to the end of my career. I knew Kessler was a big super middleweight, a big puncher, good boxer and was undefeated, plus in the build-up you could see he was confident and there were no cracks in him.
“That night I had to keep my nerve. Fourth round, he caught me with two big uppercuts and I thought, ‘Fuck,’ but being able to adapt is what makes a fighter a to champion; having plans, 1,2,3 and 4. My existing plan wasn’t working, because I was too aggressive and he was counter punching me and my timing was out, which is why he caught me with those two uppercuts. However, if anything those punches woke me up.
“I started to use my boxing skills to my advantage, which were my speed, my jab and my feints. Then in rounds five, six and seven he started to get frustrated and I caught him with a good body shot which winded him a bit. For the rest of the fight I kept to that plan and didn’t mix it up with him too much, was less aggressive and it was a beautiful night. Bless my dad though., He must have had so much stress that night, because I think he had five fighters on that show before and was in and out of the corners, before his son was boxing in a world unification fight at the end of the night in the early hours.
“After the Kessler fight, that was it for me. I couldn’t make super middleweight anymore. I lost 36lbs for that fight in the previous 15 weeks and had been champion for 10 years, won every single belt and for me, there was only one thing left – legacy, not money. I wanted to retire on top and walk away on my own terms, which is something money can’t pay for. I wanted to fight in America at light heavyweight and win the Ring Magazine title at two different weights, which is thankfully something I was able to achieve.
“The Bernard Hopkins fight in Las Vegas (19 April 2008), was a beautiful experience and then finishing off in Madison Square Garden, beating Roy Jones Jr, which was fantastic. I was 36 at the time and new retirement was the right thing to do. Injuries were getting worse and I could have lied to myself and said there was something more I needed to do, but that wouldn’t have been true. I’d won everything I wanted to win and if you stay in the game long enough, you’ll be there when that young guy steps up and takes you, and eventually that happens to every fighter. We all have our end day and that was mine.”
Calzaghe vs Hopkins
Finishing off the interview we indulged in some rapid fire questions with the undefeated champion.
Strongest chin of any opponent? = ‘Hmmmm. Even though I dropped him, I’d have to say, Eubank. I hit him with everything, including the kitchen sink!’
Best engine? = ‘Errrmm. Good question. Nobody had an engine like me, so I need to think who kept up with me the best, and that would have to be Kessler.’
Single hardest puncher? = ‘I’ve got to give kudos to Byron Mitchell, because he managed to put me on my arse for the first time in my life!’
Paul Zanon, has had 11 books published, with almost all of them reaching the No1 Bestselling spot in their respective categories on Amazon. He has co-hosted boxing shows on Talk Sport, been a pundit on London Live, Boxnation and has contributed to a number of boxing publications, including, Boxing Monthly, The Ring, Daily Sport, Boxing News, Boxing Social, amongst other publications.
