Retour
Joe Calzaghe fought 46 times across his superb career, but one man stands out from the rest as the most skilled boxer of them all.
‘The Pride of Wales’ is one of the greatest boxers Britain has ever produced. He didn’t lose a single one of those 46 fights and held the WBO super-middleweight title for a record 10 years across 20 defences.
He was the first in the division to unify three of the four major titles and also held the record for the longest continual time spent as world champion of any active boxer at the time, having beaten the likes of Jeff Lacy, Mikkel Kessler, Sakio Bika and Chris Eubank.
Speaking to The Ring Magazine as part of their famous Best I Ever Faced feature, the Welshman was full of praise for Olympic Silver medalilst Richie Woodhall.
“He was very motivated for that fight. I remember I was edging the fight. He started to tire. He was a very good boxer. He fought the right tactics, great amateur.
“He used his reach and boxed in and out on his toes, [using] his right hand against the southpaw. He caught me with a few of them bad boys before I sussed him out.”
Calzaghe was the last man Woodhall ever faced. He won by 10th-round knockout and handed the Brit one of his only three losses in the professional ring.
Calzaghe fought on for eight more years and had plenty of success, including moving up to light heavyweight where he beat Roy Jones Jr and Bernard Hopkins before walking away in 2008.