By Scott Gilfoid: Former unbeaten IBF/WBA/WBC/WBO super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe (46-0, 32 KO’s) has reiterated that he won’t be making a comeback even though he’s only 38-years-old and still fit enough to keep fighting. Calzaghe finished his career two years ago with a 12 round decision over Roy Jones Jr. in November 2008. At the time that Calzaghe stopped fighting, he was considered still at the top of his game and fighting well.

However, the timing of Calzaghe’s retirement came right when the young talents Andre Dirrell and Andre Ward were emerging and there is talk that Calzaghe perhaps got out when he could before pressure would mount in him having to face these two American dynamos. Even if you ignore those two marvels, there was still tough fighters like Lucian Bute, Arthur Abraham and Carl Froch out there for Calzaghe to fight. You’d think that those guys would be a much bigger threat than the faded Bernard Hopkins and Jones, two fighters that Calzaghe fought in his last fights.

In an article at the Southwalesargus.co.uk, Calzaghe says “I won’t fight again. Money was never my goal and I feel contended and blessed to come out of boxing without being all smashed up. I’m done. Being world champion for 10 or 11 years is a long time and I made a promise to my family….I lost the love for boxing before the Jones fight. I didn’t want to fight anymore. I fought that fight because it was the perfect way to end against a legend at Madison Square Gardens. To retire on your own terms is very rare. I I came back, I’d have money in the bank but I’d get beat.”

Calzaghe is right. He would get beaten, perhaps over and over again. And I think he would have suffered the same fate had he continued to fight two years ago. Calzaghe was the top dog during the weak era of the super middleweight division during a 10 year period when the best fighters had no interest in fighting at that weight and avoided it like the way fighters avoid the cruiserweight division. But when the young talents Dirrell, Ward and Bute started to move up and become a threat, Calzaghe unfortunately chose that time to retire rather than stick it out. Who knows what would happen had he fought them, but I’m pretty certain that he would have lost to all of them. That’s not because he was old, but rather he was finally facing someone with better talent than his own.