By Sean McDaniel: In looking at the old timer’s fight between Roy Jones Jr. and Bernard Hopkins that takes place on April 3rd, one wonders whether former super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe (46-0, 32 KO’s) might be tempted to come out of retirement to fight the winner of this fight. It’s unclear how Calzaghe’s finances are set up right now, but a fight against the winner of Jones vs. Hopkins certainly wouldn’t hurt matters all that much. Calzahge, 37, has wins against both fighters two years ago in 2008, and he probably would still have enough left to beat the winner if he was interested.

Calzaghe would get a big payday and then could fade away into the sunset with one more victory. This would be a relatively safe fight for Calzaghe to take. It wouldn’t like Calzaghe would have to fight the winner of the Super Six tournament. Although that would be a nice idea, it’s not a good option for him because Calzaghe will be 38-years-old by the time the Super Six tournament is over next year.

Calzaghe defeated Hopkins by a 12 round split decision in 2008. The fight was somewhat controversial in that Calzaghe was knocked down by Hopkins and was hit with harder shots from the American. However, in the 2nd half of the fight, Hopkins clinched constantly and went down a number of times with low blows that didn’t seem to connect or when they did, they didn’t seem to be that hard. Calzaghe looked like the better fighter from what I saw of the fight.

He’d be taking a chance if he fights the winner of the Jones-Hopkins fight, because it’s likely going to be Hopkins. But Calzaghe probably still has enough left in the tank to get a win against Hopkins unless Calzaghe has gone downhill all of a sudden. Of the opponents out there for Calzaghe to fight, Jones or Hopkins would seem like the best options for him.

Not only would Calzaghe get a better payday against them, but he also would have a better chance of winning. I don’t know if Calzaghe could beat a fighter like Andre Ward at this point in his career. If Ward ends up the winner of the Super Six tourney, it might be asking a lot of a 38-year-old Calzaghe to beat a young fighter like that. I doubt Calzaghe would want to even try, because it would a huge test for his aging body. However, both Hopkins and Jones are over 40, and very beatable as Calzaghe already proved.