It takes a special person to close down the gaming tables in a Vegas casino - you can easily imagine the floor supervisor counting the seconds and losses simultaneously in his head - but Joe Calzaghe managed exactly that following his defeat of Bernard Hopkins on Saturday.

Dealers downed cards, gamblers downed chips and Calzaghe fans formed an impromptu guard of honour as he processed triumphantly to the after-fight party at the Planet Hollywood Resort.

I’d wager that Vegas has rarely seen anything like it since Sinatra and his Rat Pack were cutting a swath through the city in their peacock-strutting pomp.

But Joe isn’t hanging about for long. He is not as enamoured with the bright lights of Vegas as Frank, Dean and Sammy were, and will jet to the Caribbean for a family holiday on Tuesday before heading home to Blackwood, the place he fits in best.

“I love that. I’m just Joe, and I think people respect that,” Calzaghe told BBC Sport. “I’ll get recognised a lot more, but I’ll have the same friends, shop at the same places.

“I don’t go out of my way to get all the attention, I’m just here to do my job. Thank God I’m gifted at boxing.”

There was no guard of honour for Hopkins, only a deep sense of aggrievement, and trainer Freddie Roach confirmed his dressing room was a dark place immediately after the fight.

“How can I give any credit when I believe I won the fight?” said the 43-year-old at the post-bout news conference.

“I’m told that he landed the most punches on me in all my fights. Well, if that had been the case, I’d be looking like the elephant man and my nose would be at the back of my head.

“I’ve never been the cutest, but I’m reporting in the morning for a photo-shoot because there’s not a mark on my face. I got beat, but not by Joe Calzaghe.”

“I would like to see him retire,” Roach told BBC Sport. “He’s my good friend and it would be great to see him spend time with his family.”

Indeed, several times Hopkins looked as though he was about to launch into a retirement speech up on the dais.



But he also confirmed that Don King had already been knocking, mooting a rematch with Felix Trinidad and wafting the green stuff his way, and so a career that has lasted two decades and encompassed 25 world title fights could grind on.

The Philadelphian is a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame and even in defeat against Calzaghe he showed what a canny operator he still is, albeit an ungracious one. A scan of 606 suggests that many will disagree, but this is one observer who appreciates some of Hopkins’s darker arts, however ugly they may look.

However, if you spend almost the entire fight on the back foot against a fighter as busy as Calzaghe, you’re going to be open to the charge of negativity, especially in Las Vegas, where they traditionally go for the busier man.

“I thought we did enough to win,” said Roach. “But a lot of times when you’re going backwards and the other guy is going forwards, the judges are going to favour that guy.”

That said, Chuck Giampa? 116-111 to Calzaghe? Just three rounds in the entire fight to Hopkins? I can only suggest he was in a very small room with Tom Jones when the Welsh legend was applying his hairspray.

What now for the Newbridge southpaw, and where does this victory place him in the pantheon of British boxing greats? Or might it be more fitting to ask, where does this victory put him in the pantheon of British sporting greats?



Surely now you could make a very sound case for Calzaghe against any British fighter in the modern era. The ding-dongs as to whether he or Lennox Lewis deserve the title of ‘the greatest’ will run and run, except in the pubs of Wales, where the argument has already been won.

Heavyweight legend Lewis did it in boxing’s blue riband division, but Calzaghe has never lost and Calzaghe has certainly never allowed himself to be knocked out twice by men clearly not in the same class as himself, as was the case with Lewis.

Whether a fight with a 39-year-old Roy Jones Jr at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium will do anything to enhance his reputation is debatable, although, if he were to lose, it could certainly do it some harm.

But, with America’s middleweight king Kelly Pavlik otherwise engaged, a clash with Jones would plump up Joe’s bank balance and provide the perfect stage upon which to bid farewell to his steadfast Welsh supporters.

“Too many fighters go on for too long,” says the 36-year-old. “Everyone wants to stay undefeated and I’m no different. One more fight from me and that’s it, I’m done.”

He came to America at last, he proved his doubters wrong, and he is just one fight away from joining the legendary Rocky Marciano in retiring from the ring with an untarnished record. As Calzaghe put it: "Not bad for a white boy”. Even Bernard, given time, will find it difficult to disagree.

PS. Many have asked how this trip compared to the lunacy that was Hatton-Mayweather last December. If that fight was the last days of Rome, then this was Cardiff city centre on a Friday night. There’s been very little in it.

PPS. Took a stroll down to The Venetian yesterday. After spending a good half an hour looking for the canals that I’d been told run through the casino, I followed a sign up an escalator, and there they were, gondoliers and everything - on the first floor! Now that’s Vegas, baby…