{"id":767516,"date":"2026-09-11T18:10:31","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T18:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/767516\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T18:10:31","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T18:10:31","slug":"tony-bellew-picks-a-winner-in-prime-joe-calzaghe-vs-andre-ward-there-is-only-one-man-who-beats-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/767516\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Bellew picks a winner in prime Joe Calzaghe vs Andre Ward: “There is only one man who beats him”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tony Bellew<\/a> has predicted the winner of a prime-for-prime battle between Andre Ward<\/a> and Joe Calzaghe.<\/p>\n

The two super-middleweight legends retired with unblemished records, having cemented their greatness at 168lbs before moving up to light-heavyweight.<\/p>\n

First to call time on his illustrious career was Calzaghe, who remains the longest-reigning world super-middleweight champion in history after amassing 20 successful defences over 10 years.<\/p>\n

It was back in 1997 that the Welshman dethroned Chris Eubank<\/a>, before claiming significant victories over the likes of Jeff Lacy and Mikkel Kessler.<\/p>\n

Known for his tremendous work rate, Calzaghe also possessed the necessary speed and slippery southpaw skills to bamboozle the vast majority of his opponents.<\/p>\n

As arguably the superior technician and tactician, however, many will argue that Ward would solve the Calzaghe puzzle in a fantasy showdown.<\/p>\n

Among those who favour the American is former world champion Bellew, who told Fight Your Corner<\/a> that he believes only one man would have defeated Ward at super-middleweight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see anybody outworking Joe Calzaghe. But the thing that I\u2019ll give Dre [Ward] credit [for] is \u2026 I think he\u2019s the hardest person to ever beat in that division [168lbs].<\/p>\n

\u201cHis inside work is phenomenal \u2013 he can lock you up; he can box at range; he hits hard enough to get your respect. There\u2019s nothing he can\u2019t do.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s only one person that beats Andre Ward at super-middleweight, and it\u2019s Roy Jones Jr.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps most significant was Roy Jones\u2019 super-middleweight triumph over James Toney<\/a>, who entered their 1994 encounter as an unbeaten defensive wizard but ultimately suffered a unanimous decision defeat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tony Bellew has predicted the winner of a prime-for-prime battle between Andre Ward and Joe Calzaghe. The two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-767516","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\/767516","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=767516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}