The career of Joe Calzaghe is often defined by a handful of fights in the UK and US.
His first world title win against Chris Eubank, the 12-round education he dished out to Jeff Lacy, that momentous night at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium against Mikkel Kessler and the combined 24 rounds he shared with fight game legends Roy Jones Jr and Bernard Hopkins.
The emphatic and dazzling performance against Lacy is rightly remembered to this day but fellow Welsh Boxing great and now highly respected pundit Barry Jones picked Calzaghe’s battle with a Great Dane.
“The Kessler win is his best win,” Jones told Declan Taylor during episode 49 of The Boxing Social Podcast.
“I know people say Kessler wasn’t right for the fight and maybe but tell me a fighter who’s had a perfect camp and I’ll show you a liar. That was the best Kessler you ever seen.
“I spoke to Joe after the fight and said I felt really sorry for Kessler because he boxed a perfect fight to beat you and it wasn’t enough. After three-four rounds he [Calzaghe] looked in trouble and just changed the whole pattern of the fight. That was the biggest fight in the division at that time, for what that fight meant, that level, for where every little mistake you pay for and cannot afford to do anything wrong. To change the pattern of a fight in any fight is hard to do. At that level it takes a great fighter.”
Let us know what you think is the greatest win of Joe Calzaghe’s career across our social media channels.