{"id":779626,"date":"2026-09-23T04:54:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T04:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/779626\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T04:54:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T04:54:18","slug":"joe-calzaghe-names-the-one-man-who-he-wishes-he-had-fought-before-he-retired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/779626\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Calzaghe Names The One Man Who He Wishes He Had Fought Before He Retired"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Calzaghe<\/a> is one of the most successful British boxers of all time, but still has regrets about not fighting one man in his prime.<\/p>\n

Welshman Calzaghe began his career at super middleweight and beat every man put in front of him. He was renowned for his fast hands, constant flurries of punches, great defences and tireless work rate.<\/p>\n

He won his first world title in 1997 when he beat Chris Eubank on points and then retained the belt with a record-setting 20 defences over the course of a decade, including victories over the likes of Jeff Lacy, Robin Reid, Mikkel Kessler and Sakio Bika.<\/p>\n

For his final two fights, he moved up to light heavyweight and beat the legendary Bernard Hopkins, then in his final fight claimed a win over Roy Jones Jr<\/a>, leaving him with a record of 46 wins from 46 fights.<\/p>\n

However, speaking to Sky Sports Boxing<\/a>, Calzaghe has previously expressed his regret at not having fought a fellow British super middleweight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would have been a great fight, a big money fight, and I would have demolished him. If there was one fight I wish I had fought, it would have been Carl Froch.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time I had bigger and better things, fighting Mikkel Kessler for the undisputed championship of the world, and then I stepped up to light-heavyweight to win a Ring Magazine in America against the then pound-for-pound best (Bernard Hopkins).<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t expect him to have the career that he had. He\u2019s done well, he\u2019s won world titles, lost, come back and won again, lost and come back and won again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Froch was slightly younger than Calzaghe and at a different point in his career when the two fought, but he has long said he <\/a>chased the fight and remains confident he would have won had they met.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe Calzaghe is one of the most successful British boxers of all time, but still has regrets about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-779626","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\/779626","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=779626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}