JOE CALZAGHE CALLS TIME ON BOXING AND ANNOUNCES HIS RETIREMENT FROM THE RING AS BRITAIN’S ONLY EVER UNDEFEATED WORLD CHAMPION
05-Feb-2009
Joe Calzaghe, 36, the undefeated world super middleweight champion and the longest reigning world title holder in boxing history today announces his retirement after a professional boxing career spanning almost two decades which saw him unbeaten in 18 years as a professional and amateur boxer.
Joe’s record of having won all his 46 professional fights means that he retires as Britain’s only ever undefeated world champion in boxing (having held a world title for just two weeks short of eleven years) or indeed any in other major sport.
He first took the WBO super middleweight beating Chris Eubank on a unanimous points decision in October 1997 and went on to win 23 consecutive world title fights culminating in his points defeat last autumn of Roy Jones Jnr in front of a packed Madison Square Gardens in New York.
Jones was the second US legend defeated in his own backyard by the lightning fists of Calzaghe – a feat never achieved by any other UK boxer in the modern era and one which sees Joe retire as a two weight world champion, holding both super middleweight and the light heavyweight championships. He had previously spectacularly outpointed Bernard Hopkins in Las Vegas in April 2008.
Three years ago Joe comprehensively outboxed the previously undefeated American Jeff Lacy for an unforgettable victory in a world title unification bout which resulted in him adding Lacy’s IBF title to his own WBO championship. The Lacy victory also saw Joe become the first ever super middleweight to wear the prized belt presented by The Ring, the bible of boxing, to undisputed champions.
Looking back, Joe believes that his greatest win was against the then undefeated Dane Mikkel Kessler who held the WBA and WBC belts and whom Calzaghe brilliantly outpointed over 12 rounds.
In 2007 he won the coveted BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. He was awarded the CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List the following June and MBE in 2008.
Joe said: “I’ve been lucky to have had the most fantastic career and I owe my thanks to all the many people who have been at my side and helped me to achieve everything. Of course my special thanks go to my family and, especially to my Dad Enzo who first encouraged me to put on the gloves and who was at my side and in my corner for every one of my fights.
“Deciding to call it a day has been one of the toughest decisions of my life. There’s always the temptation to fight on, especially if you are the champ and no-one has ever beaten you. But I’ve now come to a point where the satisfaction of retiring undefeated has to outweigh the thrill of another fight.
“I’ve also achieved every goal I’ve ever set myself in the ring – there are no more mountains left to climb.”
“I’m retiring from boxing but certainly not retiring in the sense of doing nothing. I am already working on a number of TV projects and am looking at various commercial offers going forward. I shall also be continuing and expanding my charity work which is very close to my heart and, of course, spending a bit more time with the family.”
Born in Hammersmith in 1972 the son of a Welsh mother, Jackie and Sardinian father, Joe grew up in Wales and began boxing at the age of nine. He won four schoolboy ABA titles followed by three consecutive senior British ABA titles between 1991 and 1993 when he turned professional.
His senior ABA titles made Joe the only boxer in post-war history to win welterweight, light middleweight and middleweight titles. Altogether, as an amateur, Joe won an astonishing 110 of his 120 fights.
It is a tribute to a father-son relationship quite possibly unique in sport that Joe never lost a fight either as a pro or an amateur while Enzo trained him enabling him to retire with a legacy unique in boxing history.
Legend. He's done us all proud.
