{"id":330183,"date":"2025-12-22T18:18:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T18:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/330183\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T18:18:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T18:18:06","slug":"joe-calzaghe-says-one-man-stands-above-all-others-as-the-greatest-of-all-time-hes-an-icon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/330183\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Calzaghe says one man stands above all others as the greatest of all time: &#8220;He&#8217;s an icon&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Welsh boxing legend Joe Calzaghe is often heralded as Britain\u2019s best ever, but the long-reigning super-middleweight ruler declared that only one man can truly be labelled globally as \u2018the greatest.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Calzaghe famously held the WBO super-middleweight world title for over a decade and unified the belts with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.co.uk\/boxing\/story\/_\/id\/21271246\/10-years-joe-calzag-finest-fight-vs-mikkel-kessler\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">career-best victory against WBA and WBC titleholder Mikkel Kessler back in 2007<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The Italian Dragon\u2019 then moved up to light-heavyweight for the final two outings of his career, overcoming both Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. to maintain his undefeated record and become <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/opinion\/joe-calzaghe-reflects-fondly-on-a-career-that-played-out-flawlessly\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">one of a select few to retire with their \u20180\u2019 intact<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, when labelling \u2018the greatest\u2019 to have ever laced up the gloves, Calzaghe opted for the iconic Muhammad Ali rather than one of his fellow unbeaten superstars, in an interview with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/wales\/36451653\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn a 1,000 years\u2019 time people will look back and say he [Ali] was the greatest,\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe is the greatest boxing and greatest sporting icon of all time. He was my inspiration; I tried to copy some of his moves as soon as I started boxing at the age of 10 or 11.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBoxing is the hardest sport in the world and in a time when he was champion, it wasn\u2019t a great sport \u2013 it was on a bit of a downward spiral, but he transcended the sport with his personality and style.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople loved him, he was someone completely different, he backed it up in the ring and everybody wanted to tune in and watch him fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ali became the first fighter to win the heavyweight world title on three occasions when he outpointed Leon Spinks in their 1978 rematch and remains as the only boxer in history to have won the Ring Magazine Fighter of the Year award on more than four occasions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welsh boxing legend Joe Calzaghe is often heralded as Britain\u2019s best ever, but the long-reigning super-middleweight ruler declared&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-330183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}