Many years after both men have retired, there is still a heated rivalry between Carl Froch and Joe Calzaghe.
Although they never fought, these two fighters lit up their time in the super middleweight divisions across two hugely successful careers.
Arguably, the famously fast-handed Calzaghe edges it having gone unbeaten across all 46 fights in his career, including moving up to light heavyweight to beat the likes of Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr in his final fights.
Froch, the younger man with a granite chin, has claimed before that the Welshman moved up in order to avoid having to fight him, a hungry challenger who was coming up and knocking people out while making his own mark on the division.
Froch went on to hold multiple world championships including the WBC title twice between 2008 and 2011, plus the IBF and WBA belts later on, and famously ended his career with a showreel stoppage of George Groves at Wembley in May 2024 having been given a controversial stoppage win in the first fight the previous year.
On the subject of debatable wins, Froch has told The Ring Magazine that the ‘Pride of Wales’ should never have ended his career undefeated, believing that Robin Reid should have got the decision against him.
“Robin Reid could really bang, and in my opinion he deserved the win over Joe Calzaghe in their fight.”
The contest took place in 1999 and had controversial scorecards with one judge giving it wide to Reid on his card which read 116-111, while Calzaghe took the other two cards 116-111, leaving Reid in shock he didn’t get the victory.
