By Simon Hirst: Wales’ greatest fighter Joe Calzaghe called time on his career today at the age of 36. Calzaghe, a certain future hall of famer, ends his career unbeaten with a 46-0-0. Calzaghe decided that retirement was the best option for him as he ‘had no more mountains to climb.’
Of course, some people will look at this as giving up, but the man has been in 46 fights and won them all. He has great fighters on his record such as Eubank, Reid, Woodhall, Jones, Hopkins, Lacy, Bika and Kessler. He defended his title over 20 years and held it for over ten. He will retire as Britain’s only unbeaten world champion. The offers of fights he had were Chad Dawson, Carl Froch and rematches against Kessler and Hopkins. Dawson some would argue would offer Calzaghe his toughest test, but Dawson never really showed any serious offer other than words and opted to fight a rematch against Tarver, a man past his best who he destroyed in his last fight.
“I’ve been world champion for 11 years. I’ve got no other goals to go for. That’s why I am calling it a day.” In an interview with the BBC, Calzaghe, who held the WBO, WBA, WBC and IBF super-middleweight belts during his 16-year professional career, said he had thought “long and hard” about retiring, but insisted it was the right move. “I had a long think with my family,” he said. “My children wanted me to give up, plus my mum. That’s why I called it a day and will go on to do something else.”
Calazghe then said “My decision is to retire. I’ve been boxing for 25 years and, like I said, I’ve achieved everything I want to achieve. You can never say never in this game, but I can’t see myself boxing again. There’s loads of things I want to do. I’m proud to be one of only a few fighters in history to retire undefeated.” when asked if he could ever be tempted out of retirement.Calzaghe thanked his father and his trainer Enzo Calzaghe, but admitted that the thrill of retiring undefeated outweighed the thrill of boxing.
Calzaghe will go down as one of the best British fighters of all time. Some will argue he won’t be in the world, but this is highly debatable. What is not debatable is Calzaghe was the best super middleweight over the last decade and the last few years was a regular in the pound for pound top 3. Of course, our friends in the USA and others will argue he never fought the best in their prime, but the fact is the best in America didn’t want to know, so Calzaghe cannot be blamed for this. Calzaghe did the best he could, took the best fights when he could and won everyone of them. His decision to retire now rather than fight on and face opponents he has never face will always be a subject to critism, but the fact is a fighter should retire from a sport before the sport retires him and if Calzaghe feels now is the time to retire, who are we to question him? I’m sure most British fans, whilst will be disappointed we will never see this great athlete in the ring again, will be proud of everything Calzaghe has achieved in his career. Consider the many fighters who have retired too late, in some cases still haven’t retired such as Roy Jones Jr and De La Hoya, Calzaghe should be respected and applauded for retiring at the right time.
Below are some highlights of Joe Calzaghe’s career:
– Born on March 23rd 1972
– Turned professional in 1993 stopping his opponent in round one
– Won the British super middleweight title in 1995 against Stephen Wilson
– Defeated Chris Eubank in 1997 to become the WBO super middleweight champion
– Defeated Robin Reid to retain WBO super middleweight title in a tough fight
– Knocked out Richie Woodhall to retain WBO super middleweight title.
– Suffered knock down by Byron Mitchell in round 2 for the WBO super middleweight title. Then knocked Mitchell out in the same round to retain title in 2003
– Emphatically defeated Jeff ‘Left Hook’ Lacy who never recovered after the betaing. Calzaghe added the IBF title to his collection.
– Won the WBA and WBC titles of Mikkel Kessler as Calzaghe outclassed him in their unification fight.
– Calzaghe stepped up to take on Hopkins at Light Heavyweight for The Ring title. Despite being knocked down in round one, Calzaghe outworked and outpunched Hopkins who opted to clinch and fight negatively to win the fight via split decision in 2008
– Calzaghe, again knocked down in round one, destroyed Roy Jones Jr in what is the final fight of Calzaghe’s career and win 46.
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