No Ordinary Joe

I was exaggerating to make a point when I said that this country gets behind losers when it comes to the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award, or maybe I just got out on the wrong side of the bed that morning. Making weight for the Bika fight, which was a week away when I made the comment in a radio interview, had affected my mood perhaps. Whatever, I wasn’t exactly holding my breath about a TV show that made a winner out of Greg Rusedski, who has never won a Grand Slam tournament in his life.

It wasn’t my intention then to come across as bitter over the Sports Personality award and it isn’t my intention now. I really don’t care. I had never watched the show before I got invited to take part in December 2006 because I’d been nominated. I’m not a fraud, I’m the real deal. I’ve been champion for almost ten years, the longest reigning British world champion in any sport, and it’s not as if I’ve cheated my way onto the big stage by parading a meaningless belt in front of people, a plastic piece of nonsense. I beat a British boxing legend in Chris Eubank to become champion and I’ve beaten six former world champions. Watch those fights and tell me which one of those wasn’t a world-class performance. Everybody thought Lacy was going to come over and wipe the floor with me but look at what happened to him. Can he not fight either? All the top fighters that America has sent over, I’ve sent them packing, simple as that; yet after all these years as champion I’ve not been given the proper recognition. It’s a joke and I laugh about it, what else can I do? If I was a footballer or a golfer or a tennis player and as successful in one of those sports as I am in boxing, it would all be different.

Even so, Darren Clarke thought I should have picked up the award. ‘I think Joe Calzaghe should get it because he’s a world champion and a proper sportsman,’ he said. Darren was the odds-on favourite in the betting and he didn’t have to say this. He’d had a terribly traumatic year, losing his wife Heather to cancer, but he came back and played magnificently to help Europe win the Ryder Cup. He’s a proper sportsman too and a proper man but, despite Darren’s support, I wasn’t on tenterhooks about the award. I kept an open mind but, deep down, never really thought I was going to win, even though I picked up the BBC Wales award a week before going to Birmingham for the kind of event that is not really my thing. Darren, Zara Phillips and Beth Tweddle all had long segments at the start and boxing and cycling were the last sports that they came to, just before the public voting closed.

Coming off the stage after being interviewed, I walked past Seb Coe who shook my hand and said, ‘I want you to win, you should win.’ Maybe if boxing had a higher profile, I would have, but who cares? I don’t know much about Zara Phillips as an equestrian rider but she’s done great to become a world champion and good luck to her for winning the award. Having the acknowledgement of top sportspeople gives me enough pleasure, I don’t need a trophy to show off on my mantelpiece and I certainly hadn’t gone there with a speech planned. It would have been good for boxing, if either Ricky or myself had got in the top three, but I haven’t lost any sleep over it. Picking up The Ring belt is worth a lot more than Sports Personality of the Year in my book.

I was a fan of the first series of the show and followed the personalities. Peter was prominent as he finished runner-up but, to be brutally honest, I didn’t think much of him and when I was told that I was fighting him I thought it would be comfortable, an easy fight. I didn’t anticipate any danger but I was still able to get excited because 35,000 people were expected to come to the Millennium and the fight would be broadcast live on HBO in America. Over the years I’ve not been so fussed about boxing in the United States, I even went through a period shortly after 9/11 when I didn’t want to fly there, or anywhere else for that matter because I’d had several experiences of going through heavy turbulence and I didn’t like it. I remember a press conference in New York ahead of my fight with Charles Brewer and I was stressed out, I didn’t want to go. When we got to the gate I took one look at the plane and said to Richard Maynard, ‘I’m not going on that.’ It wasn’t a jumbo, so in my mind it wasn’t going to make it and Richard didn’t know what to do when I had my bags taken off. But, after calling Frank Warren, he made another booking and we headed from Gatwick to Heathrow for a flight six hours later – on a jumbo. Eventually, I changed my mind again about flying and about fighting in America and facing Manfredo was a way of opening doors to some bigger American names. I even changed my view on Manfredo because of the two fights he had at super middleweight after The Contender. Scott Pemberton was past his best but Peter had a good three-round win against him and another against Joe Spina, who was undefeated. In The Ring ratings he was ranked number ten, so he was a legitimate challenger and I had respect for him as an opponent. Fighting in my national stadium in front of all those people – 35,018 to establish a European record for a boxing match held indoors, for they closed the roof – made me even more determined not to repeat the mistakes I made against Sakio Bika.

Seeing a hero of mine, Sugar Ray Leonard, in the Manfredo camp was strange but I can’t say I was disappointed because it was business. The Contender is Ray’s show and he had to show faith in his man but he actually believed that Manfredo had a chance. Barry McGuigan told me after the weigh-in that Leonard had said to him, ‘I think Manfredo can win this fight.’ Barry insisted there was no chance that he could go more than ten rounds, so they bet on it and shook hands, Leonard insisting that it would at least go the distance. It was turned out to be shorter because this was a different reality for Manfredo. The atmosphere was electric as I walked to the ring but, honestly, it could have been 5,000 people at the International Arena because my focus was on one man on the other side of the ring. Manfredo looked relaxed and calm, he didn’t look afraid. I think his plan was to counterpunch me because he expected me to come wading in all wild, like I was against Bika, but he hadn’t prepared for my speed and awkwardness. I didn’t allow the emotion of the occasion to get to me and made a conscious effort going into the fight to box for the first few rounds, just stay relaxed and use my jab. I was taller and much bigger than him and it worked perfect. I used my jab and threw fast combinations and he really had no answer.

From the opening bell, I was able to find my range, my distance, my speed and my jab, everything was there. For two rounds I outboxed him and when I stepped it up in the third after hurting him with a body shot, a hard left under his ribcage, I showed that he wasn’t in my league. I must have hit him on the top of the head or on the elbow because I felt my left hand go – an x-ray two days later confirmed a scaphoid fracture, on the thumb side of my wrist – so I had to throw speed punches. I was waiting for him to fire something in retaliation so that I could step back and hit him with one big shot but the guy was throwing nothing. He held his hands up and I kept punching, maybe 30 or 40 unanswered shots, before the referee, Terry O’Connor, stepped in.

For me, it was a bit premature and this took some shine off the win because it left Manfredo with an excuse when really there was none. He said I didn’t punch hard and never hurt him but, if I didn’t hurt him, why didn’t he hit back? Why take 40 punches without responding, even with one shot? The guy had trained for twelve weeks and it was a world title fight, so maybe he was entitled to get knocked out before the referee stopped it but it was inevitable that it would have happened, if not in the third round then certainly by the fourth. Manfredo couldn’t hit me, he was slow and deep down he knows that. He can say whatever he wants but, as far as I’m concerned, I sent another fighter packing and 20 title defences is a milestone which says everything you need to know.

So what is left for me now? I’ve had my career-defining fight and I might never fight that well again because you can only fight as well as the opponent or the occasion allows you. I could fight the Danish boxer Mikkel Kessler, who holds the WBA and WBC super middleweight belts, and a Celt against a Viking might stir some old passions, but it wouldn’t be the same as the fight with Lacy. The way the Americans had built him up and the way the fight turned out, how can it ever be the same? I might never produce a performance like that again, so should I give up? Very possibly, and maybe it’s not good to admit this to myself. If I think I could quit now and walk away, maybe I should. Some of my motivation for continuing to fight is financial and money can be an unhealthy incentive in this business. Muhammad Ali came back because the money was too good to resist for a fight with Larry Holmes and, despite what he says about his desire to retire as heavyweight champion, Evander Holyfield has got to be fighting on at forty-four for money reasons too. I never want to end up like them and I’ve always remembered a piece of advice that Nigel Benn once gave me: ‘Don’t fight for the money, fight to win.’ You get paid anyway, so it shouldn’t be your motivation. But what could possibly be better than where I am at this moment? How do I improve? By fighting Kessler? He’s possibly as good a fighter as Lacy was, maybe better, but I don’t think that he’s a big enough name in America, so the fight would mean nothing there.

The way I feel now, I could fight until I’m forty. I’m thirty-five but I’m still at the top of my profession and it’s a case of how long I want to keep fighting. My mum asks me more and more when I’m going to retire and she wants me to and I definitely want to get out at the top, I don’t want to become one of these guys who hangs on too long, chasing some lost glory. Some days I really feel like I want to give up and other days I realise that if I did, it would suddenly hit me, ‘Why did I retire?’ I still feel fresh, even after ten years of being champion, and freshness is vital to a fighter’s longevity. What I’ve achieved in my career is tremendous but if I let it go now by having one fight too many, it’s not going to be the same. I want to get out at the top, that’s my goal because I have the ability to do that, and if it doesn’t happen, it will be my fault. Inevitably, I’ll get beaten sometime, if I just keep fighting. It’s about getting out at the right time and I don’t look past my best at this moment, nor do I see anybody around who can beat me, even Kessler who’s largely untested. He’s fought good fighters, ex-titleholders like Eric Lucas of Canada and Australia’s Anthony Mundine, who came into boxing from rugby league, but he’s not beaten or even faced anyone exceptional. I do like him and I watched him on the night we both boxed on the undercard of Mike Tyson-Brian Nielsen in Copenhagen. He was early in his career and I thought he would go far, he impressed me, but there aren’t any other super middleweights who get me excited.

So the reality is that after another three or four fights, that will be it, time to leave. I want to pass the milestone of ten years as champion, which I’m only a few months from doing, and then I’ll see. These next twelve months will be everything, so I want big fights, another superfight, I don’t want routine title defences because it’s hard psychologically to keep getting myself up for each fight. I’m aware that my opponent is always dangerous, and I know that if I underestimate him I could get beaten, but it’s difficult to be constantly motivated for defence after defence unless the opponent can light my fire. I’m not always intense in the ring but I can’t make that happen, it’s either there or it’s not, though, physically, I’m always in good enough shape to win. Of course, it’s harder each time I go back to the gym to start training, and it’s been that way for several years, but that’s only natural. Fighters like Kabary Salem and Evans Ashira were beatable, I could beat them with one hand and I actually did in the case of Ashira, but I got caught with silly punches that I wouldn’t normally get caught with, especially against Salem. I made mistakes because I wasn’t as sharp as I would be if I had felt real fear while preparing for the fight. Against fighters like Sheika and Brewer I prepared myself with much more enthusiasm because I knew they could punch, I knew they were going to be dangerous and, if I wasn’t on form, they could beat me. Physically, getting prepared is no harder now than it ever was, apart from my hands, which are more brittle because I’ve been boxing for twenty-five years. I do worry and I do get stressed about them and there are enough little anxieties going into a fight without being worried about injuries to your hands too. But the hardest part now is finding the motivation to get me going, which is why being written off against Lacy worked so much in my favour. It gave me incentive to prove myself again, which I did, so I ask myself, what is there for me now?

Sometimes it’s difficult for me to answer that myself. When I’m out of the gym for a few months I begin to feel comfortable and I feel like I could easily retire. As I say, if I had millions in the bank, I probably would. So why am I fighting and battling to get down to twelve stone all the time? Maybe it’s as simple as this, nothing gives me the natural high that I experience in the build-up to a fight. The physical and mental edge, the nerves you feel from walking out in front of tens of thousands of people, the pressure and all that adrenalin, money can’t buy any of this and that euphoric feeling of victory makes the sacrifice worthwhile. But there can be a flip side to all of this. I experience an unbelievable buzz through boxing, so when I come down there’s not much there to take the place of that excitement and for weeks on end I feel that I’m not really doing anything. My personality becomes very up and down, I become tetchy and uninterested and I can be a proper pain in the arse. Boxing is a profession in which this can very easily happen because of the long breaks between each fight, so you end up trying to find other ways to entertain yourself. I could go out, get drunk, come home and do the same the next day; other fighters do this and it passes the time. I can be OK one minute and the next minute I can switch.

Boxing’s such an extreme activity that the strain on your emotions is huge and I’ve developed different characters because of this. I’m not a straightforward guy. All of a sudden I can switch from being a nice guy to a guy whose blood is boiling, or I can just become cold. Most of the time I’m placid, but I can become extremely argumentative, very passionate and fiery. Yet when it’s time to fight I’m not angry at all. If somebody were to call me a dickhead as I’m about to step in the ring, I’d laugh at them, my heart wouldn’t miss a beat. It’s when I’m between fights and not channelling my aggression or my energy into something positive that I get moody and allow things to fester because I’m bored. So I start an argument and then another one erupts. I can row the whole bloody time. If I’m not rowing with my girlfriend, I’m rowing with my dad, and in some strange way I almost need that in my life, a bit of disruption and mayhem. Dad asks me why I can’t have two days that are just smooth, but if things stayed normal for two days, I would think that I’ve got to say something to cause some strife. I’ve always been that way, up and down. I’m a different person when I fight, an extrovert and totally in control. As soon as I put in my earphones and walk to the arena, nothing on earth could shake me. Deep down I know that I’m shy, which is strange, because I can go out and perform in front of these tens of thousands, yet I get nervous when I have to stand and speak in front of a dozen people. Dad is the same because he was able to sing in front of large audiences but he’s uncomfortable even with small public engagements. For me, I’m most confident when I put my gloves on, I’m ready to entertain.

So I wonder what I’ll be like when I retire, what it is that will keep me on an even keel. I think I’ll be OK. Having two boys, Joe who is nearly a teenager and Connor who is eleven, and being a full-time dad takes up a lot of my time, so I don’t think I’ll be too bored. But boxing is in my blood as well and I do see myself staying in the sport. Maybe I’ll manage a few fighters or join Dad as a trainer, not for the money but to be able to pass on my knowledge. I’ve always wanted to travel the world and I’d like to read more. I’m always taking a book whenever I go to my hotel ahead of a fight but I end up watching TV instead. I’m just not one of these people who likes to sit and contemplate, I’m spontaneous, I get up and I want to do something. I don’t like my own company too much. Sometimes I’ll have a quiet afternoon but I don’t enjoy being on my own. I can’t get up in the morning and listen to the peace and quiet and just chill, I’ve got to turn the TV on because I like the sound. I just like noise, a constant buzz.

All of this worries me because one day I’ll have given up boxing and I won’t have a fight around the corner to give me my next fix. I could do dinners, get fat and get drunk and babble on about my past glories like a lot of ex-sportsmen. It’s a nice little earner, pays the bills though because I’m too shy and introverted I don’t particularly enjoy speaking in public. I can do it but I just don’t feel comfortable in that environment. Ricky Hatton is good at it but I’m not people-wise when it comes to speaking to an audience and cracking jokes. Maybe I’ll be one of these fighters who come out of retirement, who can’t get away from the sport. I’ve been buying some properties in Eastern Europe and building up a property portfolio abroad, but that will only generate some income, it won’t replace the excitement that boxing has brought into my life. Is it all going to be an anticlimax? I really don’t know what I’m going to do. I didn’t think about it before but in the last twelve months I’ve been concerned about it more, as I’ve started to realise that some of these fighters who I thought were getting on in years are actually younger than me. Maybe I’ll retire and miss the buzz so much that I’ll make a comeback, like Leonard did and Ali and a whole host of fighters, but I hope I’ll be wiser.

A few years ago I was offered the opportunity to do a shoot for an ad campaign, modelling Marks & Spencer underwear. I was a bit reluctant and my ex-wife was very adamant that I wouldn’t be doing it, so I turned down the offer. Then on holiday in Sardinia I thought some more about it and couldn’t see any harm in doing the pictures, so I rang up Frank Warren’s office and told the people there that I’d do it but by that stage Marks & Spencer had gone and chosen somebody else. Later on, Freddie Ljungberg, the Arsenal footballer, made a big name for himself wearing Calvin Klein underwear and sometimes I smile when I see one of those big posters of Freddie in his underpants and think, ‘That could have been me.’

It’s been difficult at times to persuade Joe to do some of the extra-curricular stuff that might have raised his profile sooner. The Marks & Spencer offer was a real case in point because Joe would have been the face of their rebranding campaign and they wanted him to model men’s underwear. I remember him saying to me, ‘I don’t want pictures of me just wearing pants plastered all around the place,’ and I laughed. ‘Joe,’ I said, ‘any time the public sees you you’re half-naked anyway in a pair of shorts.’ By the time he decided to go with it, the chance was gone but he’s got better over the years with the self-promotion. I don’t think it’s really in his nature to court attention but he knows now that it’s part of the business he’s in, an important part.

I haven’t turned down a load of opportunities but I don’t show up to open envelopes, which is my prerogative. If I’d got myself involved in that side of things, I might not be champion today because it’s a distraction and, if I did everything I was asked to do, when would I train? I know I’ve been criticised for not making more of myself, but I’m not one of these people who seeks the attention, I prefer to slip into the crowd. Over the years I’ve become a bit savvier but boxing is difficult to sell. You’re big news when you beat a guy like Lacy, but there’s a lot of time between fights and it goes quiet again, people forget. It’s not like football where they’re in the newspapers and magazines and on TV every week. If they got beaten 4–0 last week, they’re useless so-and-sos, but it’s OK because they won 3–0 today. The people at Ringside were very good to me early in my career and I wore their gear, but I haven’t really been able to exploit any commercial opportunities since the Lacy fight and I suppose I’m disappointed. Jasper Conran wanted me to be the face of their aftershave and I met some of their marketing people, but time went on and after a few months everything was forgotten. Maybe these kinds of opportunities will kick off for me after boxing.

When I first challenged for the title I had to win. I beat Eubank and started making more money and I’ve done even better as I’ve made more title defences. If I didn’t box again, I wouldn’t have to work straight away. I don’t make millions but I do well, so a certain motivation goes, because I live comfortably in a big house and I drive a decent car, I eat in the best restaurants and I don’t have to worry about paying the bills. I don’t live an extravagant lifestyle and if I invest my money properly I wouldn’t need to work again. So what keeps pushing me back in the ring? It’s simple, this is who I am, I’m a champion and the thought of losing rips me up. Even when I fight bad and win, I’m not happy, I’m down on myself, and it would be a hundred times worse if I lost. I believe that when I’m at my best I can beat any boxer in the world and I don’t want to leave the sport with any regrets, so there are still a few fights out there before I’ll be totally fulfilled. Maybe then I’ll be able to walk away happy and stay away for good.

I’ve remained in this part of Wales for all these years, right in the heart of the valleys, because it keeps my feet on the ground. That’s the way people are here, down-to-earth, and I think that’s why people respect me, for I’m just one of them and they can see that every day. I’m Welsh and I’m Italian-Sardinian and both of these cultures fill me with pride. Wales is a small country but just in boxing we’ve produced Jimmy Wilde, Tommy Farr, Howard Winstone and other really good fighters. Through my boxing, I’ve put the town of Newbridge on the map, but still no one bothers me, which suits me fine. I like the familiar surroundings and I’d still be training in that old, blue shack, if they hadn’t thrown us out to knock it down. Sometimes I can close my eyes and still breathe in the musty smell, but we’ve done the new gym up nice and I know where I’d prefer to be training.

For young people in the area, it’s a good place to go and keep fit and boxing still has an important role to play in society. It encourages discipline and respect and teaches people that there are no shortcuts to the top. If you don’t put the work in, boxing will find you out very quickly. Unfortunately, the numbers in amateur boxing are nowhere near the level they were at twenty years ago. I remember the first time I boxed in the ABA championships I had to go through a regional set of qualifiers and there were maybe ten or fifteen boys at the weight. I was even made to box twice in one day and after stopping the first boy I had to come back later to stop the other one. Now you have boys getting byes all the way to the finals of the Welsh championships. The sport isn’t as popular today as it was when I was growing up. I played football and there was a boxing gym and that was it, whereas today kids can play golf, tennis, all kinds of sports and there’s also PlayStation. They don’t want to go to a boxing gym any more, they would much rather play a boxing game on the computer.

But the biggest thing that counts against boxing today is all the internal politics. There are too many titles and not enough top fighters and this has taken away from the prestige of winning a world title. All these Intercontinental titles, what are they and who cares? The only Inter I knew growing up was a football team in Milan and I never liked them either. Intercontinental belts mean nothing, they’re for fighters ranked between twenty and fifty in the world or whatever it is and they diminish the value of a real title. When I won the British title I went on to challenge for the WBO title, but television want to put on title fights that make the public switch off. The IBO, WBU and IBC and all of these other organisations just confuse people. Their belts tarnish the sport so that the average man in the street doesn’t know what a legitimate title is any more. Go back twenty or thirty years and being a world champion meant something, it was a big deal, but now people don’t know who the real champion is in any division.

The heavyweight division is the perfect example. Being heavyweight champion was like being king in the time of Rocky Marciano, Muhammad Ali and Jack Dempsey, but today the majority of people couldn’t name the heavyweight champion of the world, even sports fans. Most people would probably say that it’s Lennox Lewis or Mike Tyson. The heavyweight division is so bad that, if I was a stone heavier, I would give away the rest in weight to fight some of those guys. James Toney was once a middleweight but now he fights with his belly hanging out over his shorts. How can a blown-up middleweight become a legitimate heavyweight contender? It demeans the sport. Boxing has suffered in America because a lot of guys are playing other sports like basketball or American football. It’s easier than getting hit on the head and they get more money for playing those sports, tens of millions of dollars.

I’ve never liked the heavyweight division because most of the time it’s vastly overrated. Tyson was exciting for a year or two and he dominated when the division was shit, beating up on the likes of Pinklon Thomas, Tyrell Biggs and Tony Tubbs, a poor bunch, though I enjoyed the Riddick Bowe-Evander Holyfield-Lennox Lewis era. It was interesting then but it hasn’t been interesting for years. If you were to take away Tyson, Lewis and Holyfield, Larry Holmes and a few others, the heavyweight division has been crap since the 1970s. There were guys like Thomas and Trevor Berbick, Tubbs and Bonecrusher Smith, then Tyson came along and destroyed everyone. Was Tyson that good or was the division just crap? Would Lewis have destroyed all of them too? Of course he would have, maybe just not as explosively. The division was average, as there were no other great heavyweights. The bigger they are the more average they seem to be, which probably hurts boxing overall. I only watch about half a dozen fighters who entertain me, like Marco Antonio Barrera and Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines, who are both super featherweights but there aren’t too many fighters around today who make me think, ‘That boy can fight.’ All these Intercontinental and Intergalactic title fights don’t interest me one jot.

My future, I hope, will be in America. I’m in the last leg of my career now and it’s about cementing my legacy. My dad reckons that I’m getting better with age, like a fine wine. I don’t take any unnecessary punishment in the gym by taking part in wars because the body can take only a certain amount of wear and tear. With a lot of ex-fighters, you can detect a difference in the way they speak and their movement slows. I spoke to Nigel Collins, the editor of The Ring, when he presented me with my championship belt and he brought up the sad case of Meldrick Taylor, who was a terrific fighter from Philadelphia, fast hands, brilliant boxer, had an unbelievable war with Julio Cesar Chavez. He actually beat up Chavez when Chavez was at his best before the great Mexican stopped him in the final seconds of a classic fight. Now Taylor is almost like a ghost and he can hardly speak. Nigel talked about the way he sparred, he had wars in the gym, Philly wars, they call them because that’s the way they were brought up sparring in Philadelphia. From fourteen years old, he was in the gym having wars. Eventually, they will catch up on any man, as much as the fights in the ring.

My sparring sessions now are all about speed and timing, mainly due to my fragile hands which I need to protect but this is why I’m still sharp and why I still feel that there are other big fights ahead of me. For many years I never really had the urge to go to America to fight at Caesars Palace or one of the other venues along the Las Vegas Strip or at Madison Square Garden in New York. This is where I live and my attitude was always that they could come over here to fight me. I’ve never felt like I had to go there for the history, I’m not too bothered by that and I don’t think my career could ever be classed as a failure or a disappointment if I never fought in America. I’ve beaten every top American that they’ve had to offer and I just haven’t been given the respect for being nearly ten years a champion. No other boxer in the world today has achieved that level of dominance.

I do think there’s a bias within the American boxing media and the wider American market. They’re slow to recognise the achievements of sportsmen from other countries because it’s an insular country. If you don’t do it there, you might as well be nobody. So people have always said that I need to go and box in America, that’s the holy grail. But the truth is this, I would fight Bernard Hopkins, the light heavyweight champion, and Jermain Taylor, the middleweight champion. I would fight Winky Wright who boxed Taylor to a draw, I would fight all of these guys tomorrow. But Hopkins is too shrewd a businessman and he simply doesn’t want to fight me, so he’s going to fight Winky in July 2007 at a catchweight around the twelve stone super middleweight limit. Yet in a recent interview with The Ring Hopkins said, ‘If the money is right, I would fight Joe Calzaghe, but not at one hundred and sixty-eight pounds. Calzaghe would have to move up to light heavyweight.’ Hopkins still considers me too dangerous, I guess, or he wouldn’t be changing the rules. Taylor has been talking about moving up in weight from middleweight but he, too, shows no desire to get in the ring with me. It’s almost like those fighters have their own little clique and they fight among themselves to make as much money as they can but don’t allow anyone else in, particularly somebody who could beat them. Hopkins is the biggest fight out there for me, along with Taylor, and I’d just be too strong for Winky Wright. I have no interest any more in Roy Jones and no interest in Antonio Tarver. Jones is washed up and Tarver was never that good anyway, he just caught Jones when Jones was shot and Johnson did the same. Then they got on their little merry-go-round and everyone began to say Tarver and Johnson were great fighters but, if they were so great, why was Johnson losing a dozen fights during the prime years of his career? Why was Tarver fighting nobody? He fought like he was scared and did absolutely nothing for twelve rounds against Hopkins, a middleweight moving up. That’s why I’d like to fight Hopkins, The Ring light heavyweight champion against The Ring super middleweight champion, it’s a natural. I don’t think it would be the most exciting fight in the world because of his style but, technically, it would be terrific, a fight for aficionados and I’d go to America to make it happen.

‘Joe Calzaghe, he could fight,’ that’s what I’d like people to be able to say. ‘Look how long he was undefeated and when will somebody else do that?’ I’m not a person who craves attention and thinks, ‘Look at me, look at me.’ I like my privacy and I probably couldn’t handle it if I was a footballer or a film star and had paparazzi trailing me everywhere. I’d be one of those people who would have to move away from the spotlight because I wouldn’t like it. I just don’t crave it. I get invites to movie premieres but I don’t go and I get offers from agents, ‘You have to do this, Joe, and you’ve got to go there . . . Open this envelope and you’ll get publicity . . . Just go to be seen at this new place, see who’s coming and go rub shoulders.’ I’m a fighter and all I crave is respect for being a fighter. Maybe ten years down the line when people look back I’ll be more appreciated, this tends to be the way. I’d like to fight in America too, even once, just to show them that there’s been a great fighter in the Welsh valleys all these years. It doesn’t bother me if the man in the street recognises me or not over there but there have been occasions when it might have been handy.

A week after the Bika fight I flew to Miami for a couple of days to collect the Fighter of the Year award at the WBO convention, where Dad was also honoured as trainer of the year. Enzo Maccarrinelli came with me as well as Dennis Gilmartin who works in Frank Warren’s office. I don’t like flying, so it was good to have the company, especially when we went out to experience Miami’s nightlife. The first bar we went to, however, was a bit unfriendly. I went to the toilet after ordering a round of drinks and when I came back some guy had nicked my seat. I asked for my seat back, very politely, but the guy had real attitude and, of course, he felt big surrounded by a few of his mates. Dennis had been talking to the guy’s girlfriend who told him, ‘Don’t worry, my boyfriend won’t beat up Joe. It is Joe, right?’

We stayed for a while, then somebody suggested we should go to a club called Mansion, which was once owned by P Diddy, so we thought it would be a good place. It was packed when we got there but we managed to get some drinks in before a guy came up to me all of a sudden, right in my face. I had just managed to avoid trouble in the other place and I didn’t want any here but he just looked, smiled at me and said, ‘You’re gorgeous.’ I turned in shock and walked away and by the time I found Enzo and Dennis to tell them what had happened, the guy was over with them and the situation was getting heated. Apparently, he had taken the liberty of pinching Enzo’s ass, which was a bad mistake because Enzo sent him flying with a push about twenty feet across the floor. ‘What’s wrong with you guys?’ he said in his most camp voice and it was then, as we looked around, that we realised we were in the middle of one of the biggest gay bars in Miami in the most recognised gay area in the city, South Beach. Now, if only somebody had recognised me, they might have been able to put an arm on my shoulder and say, ‘Joe, I don’t think this is your place.’