BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE – JOE CALZAGHE

Joe Calzaghe, son of Welsh mother Jackie and Sardinian father & trainer Enzo was born on the 23rd March 1972. “I grew up in the 80’s and my earliest memories when I first started boxing when I was nine-years-old was Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Marvin Hagler – that was a fantastic era. They were all great fighters but I think Leonard was my favorite.”

As an amateur Calzaghe fought in over 120 bouts, winning four schoolboy ABA titles and becomming the first British boxer to win three consecutive senior British ABA titles in 3 different weight classes – welterweight, light middleweight and middleweight. His outstanding amateur record was 112-10.

The southpaw’s pro career began in 1993 and after winning his 13th consecutive bout for the vacant British title against Stephen Wilson, he was voted Young Boxer of the Year at the age of 21. Following 8 more wins, the ‘Italian Dragon’ was awarded his shot at world honours, taking on British legend and former world champion Chris Eubank for the vacant WBO title. Calzaghe floored Eubank in the opening 20 seconds with a swift left hook and went on to claim a one sided unanimous points victory and win the title.

17 successfull mandatory defences followed before in March 2006, Calzaghe faced Jeff Lacy in a super middleweight unification with the IBF and WBO titles on the line. Despite being an underdog with the bookies, the Welshman dominated the American in every round and took home the vacant Ring and lineal titles.

A year later in 2007, the 35 year old Calzaghe now 43-0, faced the undefeated WBA world champion Mikkel Kessler (39-0) at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium. Watched by 50,000 fans setting a new attendance record at an indoor venue, Calzaghe put on a show infront of his home fans and cemented his legacy as the most accomplished super middleweight fighter in history winning the WBO, The Ring, WBA & WBC super middleweight titles.  With that win, Calzaghe surpassed the 20 title defences made by Bernard Hopkins and Larry Holmes. Only a few men including Joe Louis, Ricardo Lopez, Wladimir Klitschko and Dariusz Machalczewski have made more title defences.

Calzaghe finished his career moving up to light heavyweight with bouts against American legends Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. The Welshman recovered from a first round knockout to defeat BHOP and capture ‘The Ring’ light heavyweight championship in a close split decision in Las Vegas. Joe’s last fight was against Roy Jones Jr who was coming off a win against Felix Trinidad. Like Hopkin’s, Jones too scored a 1st round knockdown but the Welshman again recovered well and began to take control of the bout. In the 7th, he opened a deep cut above Jones Jr’s left eye which clearly impaired his vision for the remainder of the fight. The judges favoured Calzaghe by wide margin each scoring the fight 118-109.

Hailed by Ricky Hatton as ‘the best British fighter we’ve ever had’, Calzaghe retired undefeated in 2008 with a record of 46-0 (32 KO’s). He finished his career with the longest continual time as world champion of any active boxer at the time, holding the WBO title for over 10 years and making 21 successful defences. Boxrec rank him as the greatest super middleweight of all time and he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014.

Happy Birthday Champ!
______________________________________________

Boxing Guru tributes