It’s funny how a sport as complicated as boxing, with all its intricate plots and impenetrable workings, is viewed in black and white by so many of its fans.

Should Joe Calzaghe defeat Bernard Hopkins in Las Vegas in the early hours of Sunday morning, there are those who will say he beat up a 43-year-old has-been.

Lose, and the “told you so” brigade will come out in force, telling anyone prepared to listen that Joe Calzaghe was always an overrated, protected fighter who hoodwinked many of us into believing he was one of the greats for the best part of 11 years.

More thoughtful fans would agree that it's more blurred than that, but that what is at stake for the 36-year-old Welshman at the Thomas & Mack Centre is his ‘legacy’, that cringe-inducing word beloved of the boxing fraternity, and a place in boxing history.

Which is why the Newbridge southpaw, despite his 21 world title defences at super-middleweight, has far more to lose than Hopkins, already a nailed-on Hall of Famer who will no doubt make a big play on his advancing years if he is defeated.

“I am old,” he said during the build-up. “Don’t you see the grey hairs? I’m an old man, no question, my insurance went up and everything.”

For whatever reasons, and the chances are we will never know them, Calzaghe, despite building a record of 44 wins and no defeats, didn't get round to fighting any of the truly big names of his era, in or around the super-middleweight division.

The great Roy Jones Jr evaded him, but the lack of a real marquee name on Calzaghe’s record is mainly down to the fact that they’ve been pretty thin on the ground at 168lb over the past decade.

“It wasn’t my fault that I couldn’t fight guys like Nigel Benn because they were before my time,” says Calzaghe.

“And it wasn’t my fault that I couldn’t travel earlier in my career because politics always got in the way.”

So Hopkins is correct when he says: “To have my name as a victory on his resume does far more for him than having his name on my resume does for me.”

As it is, Calzaghe’s two signature victories came against Jeff Lacy and Mikkel Kessler, the first of whom was a straight-ahead, wild punching pressure fighter, the second of whom was an upright boxer in the classic European mould. Bernard Hopkins they weren’t.



Hopkins may call himself ‘The Executioner’, but former three-weight world champion Duke McKenzie reckons a more apt nickname would be ‘The Fox’.

“A fox comes in the night, turns all your bins over, and when you wake up in the morning, you don’t even realise he’s been there. That’s what Hopkins is like in the ring,” says McKenzie.

“I’m learning from Bernard Hopkins all the time,” says his coach Freddie Roach, a three-time American boxing writers’ trainer of the year. “Bernard knows more about boxing than all of us.”

‘Crafty’ is the word most commonly used to describe the Philadelphian’s ring-style, who made 20 world middleweight title defences and has amassed a record of 48 wins from 53 fights. As his assistant coach Nazeem Richardson made clear: “Joe Calzaghe won’t ever have seen anything like Bernard Hopkins.”

He throws quick combinations before jumping out of range or mauling on the inside, and often follows up punches with his head, something that is not lost on Calzaghe’s father and trainer Enzo, who is clearly worried that Hopkins will turn it into a roughhouse encounter.

“Please, Bernard, make a true, honest fight, that’s all I’m asking, and you’ll go down as a legend,” says Calzaghe Sr. “Spoil and steal, and you’ll go down as a bum.” “A bum with a belt round my waist,” you can almost hear Hopkins saying.



One thing is certain, Hopkins will not, as some of the more jingoistic Calzaghe fans have suggested, be easy to beat, and he won’t be content to merely fiddle his way through the rounds.

Hopkins still possesses a punishing right hand and he will use every trick picked up over his 20-year professional career to gain an advantage.

He also relishes the role of the underdog, as his victories over Antonio Tarver, Winky Wright and Felix Trinidad are proof of. “I like to look at some of the media faces when they just look like they've just seen Jesus walk on water,” is how he phrases it.

And as for his age, as the old adage goes: it’s not about the number of fights a boxer has had, it’s about the number of beatings, and Hopkins hasn’t taken many of those down the years.

Calzaghe, who has struggled to look good against awkward opponents in the past, as his brawls with Kabery Salem and Sakio Bika demonstrated, may find Hopkins more difficult to hit than he expects, despite his blistering hand-speed and angles of attack.

And Hopkins is unlikely to fear Calzaghe’s power, the wins over Lacy and Kessler proving that, for all the flair, he no longer possesses that knockout punch.

One thing Calzaghe will not be is overawed, despite it being his first match at light-heavyweight and his first in the United States.



The man the Americans used to call “Stay-at-home Joe” has looked relaxed beyond his comfort zone, and he is a fighter who rises to the occasion, as his wins over Lacy, Kessler and Chris Eubank before them showed.

He has also shown unflappability in the face of some unsavoury intimidation on the part of Hopkins, none more so than when Hopkins set the ball rolling back in Vegas in December with his now infamous vow "never to lose to a white boy".

And referring to his rival’s stint behind bars in the mid 1980s, which Hopkins has repeatedly spoken of in the lead-up to the fight, Calzaghe says: “Prison? Big deal, wow, give him a medal.

“Hopkins had to go to prison to make him hard so he must have been weak. I was born hard, I don’t need to go to prison to become hard. I’m a hard man full stop and you’ll see that on Saturday - I’m going to make a grown man cry.”

Time for a bit of brutal honesty. For all the hype, it’s unlikely to be much of a spectacle on Sunday morning. As Roach puts it: “It’s a boxing match, a purist’s fight.”

Hopkins will make sure it’s an ugly, scrappy affair and, with Calzaghe throwing plenty of punches, the American will no doubt have some success with his big right hand.

But Calzaghe will be too fast, throw too much leather and fight the full three minutes of every round, meaning the most likely outcome is a close decision victory for the Welshman.

“Welsh sport is going great,” says Calzaghe. “Wales winning the Grand Slam, Cardiff getting to the final of the FA Cup and me coming to Vegas to smash up Hopkins.”

After which he’ll be able to go back to being Ordinary Joe, only with his legacy assured, and a fight with Roy Jones a distinct possibility after all these years.