{"id":352200,"date":"2026-01-04T20:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T20:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/352200\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T20:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T20:01:11","slug":"joe-calzaghe-says-one-dangerous-fighter-hit-him-harder-than-all-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/352200\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Calzaghe Says One ‘Dangerous’ Fighter Hit Him Harder Than All Others"},"content":{"rendered":"

British boxing legend Joe Calzaghe<\/a> has singled out one man in particular when naming the hardest punching opponent he ever faced.<\/p>\n

Calzaghe remains one of the few great champions in boxing history to retire from the sport without suffering a single defeat<\/a> along the way.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Pride Of Wales\u2019 defeated each of the 46 opponents that he shared a ring with during his professional career, including wins over the likes of Bernard Hopkins, Mikkel Kessler and Roy Jones Jr.<\/p>\n

Calzaghe also holds the record for being the longest reigning world super-middleweight champion of all time, making no less than 20 successful defences of his WBO title over the course of 10 years.<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Ring Magazine, Calzaghe claimed that whilst Danish great Mikkel Kessler hit him hard, he names Charles Brewer as the hardest puncher that he ever crossed paths with.<\/p>\n

\u201cKessler hit hard, but I\u2019d probably go with Charles Brewer. My game plan was to outbox him, but Charles Brewer I had seen knock out lots of guys. So, I figure I\u2019ll outbox him. I remember in the first round he came out and whacked me right in the solar plexus. If you watch the tape, you see me take a deep breath and then go toe to toe for the rest of the fight. He buzzed me up a few times in that fight. Heavy-handed and dangerous from the first round till the 12th.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calzaghe faced Brewer in what was the tenth defence of his WBO super-middleweight title<\/a> at the Cardiff International Arena back in April of 2002, defeating the American via unanimous decision at the conclusion of their competitive showdown.<\/p>\n

Brewer scored 28 knockouts from 40 wins when all was said and done. He won the IBF super-middleweight belt with a win over Gary Ballard, defending against British legend Herrol Graham, Joey DeGrandis and Antoine Byrd before losing to Sven Ottke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British boxing legend Joe Calzaghe has singled out one man in particular when naming the hardest punching opponent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-352200","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\/352200","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=352200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}