Joe Calzaghe

Joseph William Calzaghe ( kal-ZA-gee; born 23 March 1972) is a Welsh former professional boxer who competed from 1993 to 2008. He held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including unified and lineal titles at super-middleweight, and the Ring magazine light-heavyweight title. Calzaghe is the longest reigning super middleweight world champion in boxing history, having held the Worl...

Joseph William Calzaghe ( kal-ZA-gee; born 23 March 1972) is a Welsh former professional boxer who competed from 1993 to 2008. He held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including unified and lineal titles at super-middleweight, and the Ring magazine light-heavyweight title. Calzaghe is the longest reigning super middleweight world champion in boxing history, having held the World Boxing Organization (WBO) title for over 10 years and defending it against 20 opponents (a record in the division, shared with Sven Ottke) before moving up to light-heavyweight. As his super-middleweight and light-heavyweight reigns overlapped, he retired with the longest continual time as world champion of any active boxer at the time. Calzaghe was the first boxer to unify three of the four major world titles (World Boxing Association, World Boxing Council, and WBO) at super-middleweight, and was the inaugural Ring champion in that weight class. Between 2006 and 2008, Calzaghe was ranked by The Ring as one of the world's top ten active boxers, pound for pound, reaching a peak ranking of third in January 2009. He retired in February 2009 with an undefeated record of 46 wins, and as a reigning world champion. As of December 2024, BoxRec ranks Calzaghe as the 37th greatest fighter of all time, pound for pound, as well as the second-greatest European boxer of all time. In 2007, Calzaghe won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, making him the first Welsh winner of this award since David Broome in 1960. Calzaghe was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2014. He was nicknamed the "Pride of Wales" and the "Italian Dragon". Biography Calzaghe was born in London to an Italian father, Enzo, from Sardinia, and a Welsh mother, Jackie. His paternal grandparents settled in the United Kingdom after the Second World War, during which his grandfather Giuseppe had served in the 12th Infantry Division Sassari, but had returned to live in Italy by the end of the 1950s. Calzaghe's father worked several jobs as a teenager in Italy, including as a barman, a chef, and a cleaner, before travelling Europe as a busker. He eventually arrived back in Britain to visit family in Bournemouth. It was during this time that Calzaghe's parents met; his mother hailed from the mining town of Markham, Caerphilly. The couple married, and briefly moved to Sardinia, but returned shortly after when Calzaghe's mother became homesick. They settled in London, his father working two jobs in a factory and a bed and breakfast while his mother worked as a secretary in the offices of production company 20th Century Fox. Calzaghe was born in Hammersmith Hospital in March 1972, before his father decided to move the family back to Sardinia at the end of the year, living in his grandfather's home in Bancali. However, his mother again pushed to return to the United Kingdom and the family lived with his maternal grandmother in Markham for three years before they moved into their own home on a council estate in Pentwynmawr, near the town of Newbridge, in Caerphilly County Borough, Wales. He attended the local school, Pentwynmawr Primary, along with his two sisters, Melissa and Sonia, and developed a keen interest in playing football. He joined Pentwynmawr F.C. at under-10s level, playing as a midfielder and scored consistently during his early years. At the age of eight, he was given a children's boxing toy that developed his interest in the sport and his father made a punching bag from an old carpet. He joined his first boxing club, Newbridge Amateur Boxing Club at ten years old and the sport quickly took priority for the young Calzaghe as he gave up playing football after two years. Calzaghe moved on to Oakdale Comprehensive School at 11, but was targeted by bullies as a teenager, becoming the target of regular verbal abuse that left him isolated. Although the culprits left him alone after a year, Calzaghe later admitted that he "never recovered from the abuse" and left school without sitting any of his GCSEs. Calzaghe was the first person to be awarded the Freedom of Caerphilly County Borough, in 2009. Already an MBE, he was elevated to CBE in the 2008 Queen's Birthday Honours. Amateur career In 120 amateur contests, Calzaghe won four schoolboy ABA titles, followed by three consecutive senior British ABA titles (British Championships) between 1990 and 1993, which were won in three different weight categories, welterweight, light middleweight and middleweight. He reportedly had an amateur record of 110–10. Calzaghe received his last two defeats in a boxing ring at the hands of Michael Smyth in the 1990 Welsh ABA Final, and against Romanian amateur Adrian Preda at the 1990 European Junior Championships in Prague. Professional career Super-middleweight In September 1993, Calzaghe was signed up and made his professional debut at Cardiff Arms Park on the Lennox Lewis vs. Frank Bruno bill the following month, halting 23 fight veteran Paul Hanlon in one round. By September 1995, Calzaghe had won thirteen out of thirteen fights, including seven in the first round and two in the second, including quickfire victories over the highly experienced American duo of Frank Minton and Robert Curry, with only the fully fledged British Light Heavyweight Bobbie Joe Edwards lasting the distance. In October 1995, Calzaghe won the vacant British super-middleweight title, stopping the previously unbeaten Stephen Wilson in the eighth round. At the end of 1995, Calzaghe was voted Young Boxer of the Year by the Professional Boxing Association and the Boxing Writers' Club, with Barry McGuigan top tipping Calzaghe for 1996: "He punches ferociously, moves superbly and has the best of the European technique and US aggression." After beginning 1996 with two more quick knockouts over Guy Stanford and Anthony Brooks, he successfully defended his British title with an easier-than-expected fifth round stoppage of the tough undefeated puncher Mark Delaney (21–0). Despite Delaney being a good fighter in his own right, Calzaghe's critics said that he had still not really been tested. Calzaghe said in reply that he could only beat whoever was out there and prepared to fight him. Calzaghe rounded off the year with victories over two experienced opponents in Warren Stowe and Pat Lawlor. In November 1996, Calzaghe moved to Frank Warren's stable. Warren, who had managed Nigel Benn for his first twenty fights, declared: "Joe Calzaghe is a far better prospect, in fact he is my fighter for the new millennium." Calzaghe continued his winning ways in 1997, defeating Carlos Christie, the unbeaten Tyler Hughes and the 45–2 Luciano Torres. Meanwhile, Warren spent the summer of 1997 chasing a fight for Calzaghe with either WBC Champion Robin Reid or Irish WBO Champion Steve Collins. The fight with Collins was arranged, but at a late stage Collins withdrew because of injury, was stripped of his title, and then retired. WBO super-middleweight champion After Collins retired, a fight against British boxing legend Chris Eubank was quickly set up for the vacant WBO title on 11 October 1997, in Sheffield. Calzaghe emerged victorious over the two-time WBO champion, knocking the granite chinned Eubank down in the opening seconds and claiming a unanimous points win. The judges scored the contest 118–110, 118–109, and 116–111 in favour of Calzaghe. Eubank said of Calzaghe in a 2006 interview that: "Joe is the proper article, a true warrior." Calzaghe conceded that Eubank, even in his comeback, gave him the toughest fight of his life. His popularity grew alongside the wider cultural movement of Cool Cymru, and Calzaghe was symbolic of the new Welsh identity which was forming. In 1998, he defended his title against Branko Sobot (winning by technical knockout in 3 rounds). Sobot was a late replacement for Syrian-American Tarick Salmaci, who pulled out after a row with his management. Sobot was knocked down in the third round. He beat the count but immediately came under renewed punishment from Calzaghe, forcing the referee to step in at 1:35 of the third round. Calzaghe then went on to defeat perennial contender Juan Carlos Gimenez Ferreyra (TKO after 9 rounds), a former opponent of both Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank. Calzaghe became the first boxer to stop Gimenez Ferreyra, something which Benn, Eubank and Roberto Durán had failed to do in the past. In 1999, Calzaghe started out by fighting his domestic rival, Robin Reid. Calzaghe was bitter that Reid had refused to face him whilst holding the WBC Championship in a unification bout and vowed to beat him, while Reid vowed to upset the odds by defeating Calzaghe and becoming a world champion again. After four rounds of the fight, Calzaghe seemed in total control and on his way to a comfortable victory, but then Reid won the next couple of rounds and it became a highly competitive fight thereafter with around five close rounds by the end of the fight that could have been scored either way, or even. Reid was also docked a point by the referee in the eighth round after a fifth warning for rabbit punches and low blows. It was arguably the closest that Calzaghe came to losing in his entire professional boxing career. After twelve rounds, the judges scored the fight for Calzaghe via a split decision (two judges scored it 116–111 for Calzaghe, while the other judge scored it 116–111 for Reid). Reid was never given the opportunity of a rematch. Calzaghe badly bruised his hand during the fight and according to Calzaghe, he suffered a dose of food poisoning. Calzaghe finished the year with another points win against Australian Rick Thornberry, where he broke his hand in the third round after looking like overwhelming his opponent early. 2000 started with another points decision against fellow Briton David Starie, in what was a dull fight that had a lot of holding and with the boxers' respective styles never gelling. This was followed by impressive wins against Omar Sheika (who was coming off a win over Glen Johnson) by fifth-round stoppage, and a TKO over former WBC world champion and close friend Richie Woodhall in ten competitive rounds, in what turned out to be Woodhall's last fight. 2001 started with an impressive first-round-stoppage win over the unbeaten German No 1 contender Mario Veit (30–0), followed by a win against American contender Will McIntyre on the Mike Tyson–Brian Nielsen undercard in Copenhagen Denmark, marking his first defence outside Britain. Calzaghe dropped him in the third round with a ferocious left uppercut, although McIntyre managed to survive the count. But the end was near. Calzaghe dropped McIntyre again at the start of the fourth, and this time the referee stopped the proceedings. 2002 started with unanimous points wins against former IBF world champion Charles Brewer of the United States in Cardiff, followed by a shutout 12-round unanimous decision over Miguel Angel Jimenez (120–107 for Calzaghe on all three judges' scorecards), and then a quick second round TKO of American Tocker Pudwill, who took the fight at very short notice as a replacement for the injured Thomas Tate, in Newcastle in December. With the win over Pudwill, Calzaghe successfully defended his WBO super-middleweight title for the 12th time. After the fight, Calzaghe said: "I'm one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world. I want to be remembered as one of the best British boxers ever." Calzaghe's only fight of 2003 was in June against another former world champion, in the shape of American Byron Mitchell at the Cardiff International Arena. Calzaghe won by TKO in the second. Calzaghe suffered his first career knockdown in the second round, before rising to halt Mitchell in the very same round, thus becoming the first boxer to stop Mitchell. 2004 started out with a defence against Armenian contender Mger Mkrtchian in Cardiff where he won easily by a seventh-round knockout, followed by a points win over Egyptian-American K