By Michael Lieberman: Immediately after his easy and predicted victory over Roy Jones Jr. last Saturday night, the question was put to Joe Calzaghe as to whether or not he’d be interested in fighting unbeaten International Boxing Federation (IBF) light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson, the fighter considered by many to be far and away the best in the division, and instead of Joe agreeing that he needed to fight him, Calzaghe said “I just stepped out of the ring 15 minutes ago.
Let me enjoy the fight now before I think about another fight. What do you think I am, man, a sadist?” Since then, Calzaghe has called Dawson unproven, comparing him to previously unbeaten middleweight Kelly Pavlik, who was recently defeated by Bernard Hopkins in a one-sided decision loss. While there is a grain of truth in what Calzaghe says about Dawson being still somewhat unproven, as he’s only beaten a handful of big named opponents like Antonio Tarver, Glen Johnson, Tomasz Adamek and Eric Harding, but the same could have been said for Calzaghe up until 2006.