Joe Calzaghe is one of few men to have retired from boxing with a perfectly unbeaten and unblemished record.
‘The Pride of Wales’ fought a total of 46 times between 1993 and 2008 and was unified champion at super-middleweight before moving up and holding the Ring Magazine’s light-heavyweight title.
Calzaghe was the WBO 168lbs title holder for over a decade and made more than 20 defences, beating the likes of Jeff Lacy, Sakio Bika and Mikkel Kessler before moving up and besting Roy Jones Jr and Bernard Hopkins in his final two contests.
He goes down as one of the best British fighters of all time and, as a result, is constantly compared to other legends in and around his weight. That includes a fellow Hall of Famer and undefeated champion in Andre Ward.
When the pair met recently, Calzaghe initially made his case for a win before diplomatically suggesting he would accept a draw.
“I’m a southpaw; I’ve got a good chin; I’m just awkward in a fight, man. I give everybody a nightmare. I’ll tell you what, brother, let’s just say [it would have been] a draw.”
When Calzaghe ended his campaign in 2008, American Ward was 16 bouts into his own and yet to win a world title. He would go on to beat the likes of Carl Froch and Kessler to do so.
Calzaghe may have boasted the speed advantage in that fantasy fight, but Ward was a master of getting in close and landing sneaky attacks to the body, as he did when he defeated Sergey Kovalev back in 2016 and then again in 2017 in what proved to be his final fights.
