Triple Treat: Joe Calzaghe, Ricky Hatton defend their titles, Alex Arthur defends his British Junior Lightweight title

By Jeff Day

11.12 - It's a pre-Christmas treat for UK fight fans this Saturday at the Telewest Arena in Newcastle, when two of our established stars and one fledgling star, fight on the same bill for the first time. With a sell-out crowd of 10,000 watching, this will be Britain's last 'big' promotion of 2002.

Joe Calzaghe and Ricky Hatton defend their alphabet titles while awaiting bigger fights and 'Amazing' Alex Arthur gets another chance to showcase his talents as he defends the British Super Featherweight (Junior Lightweight) title.

Both Calzaghe and Hatton face different opposition to the men they were originally to have faced. Calzaghe was to have met the experienced, though faded, American Thomas Tate, while Hatton was to have met Brazilian Antonio Mesquita.

Tate and Mesquita have been replaced with the delightfully named Tocker Pudwill and Mesquita with Joe Hutchinson, respectively. Arthur will meet Carl Greaves, a former challenger for this same title. Each champion should come through unscathed, but then this is the fight game.

Calzaghe will be making the 12th defence of the WBO Super-Middleweight title he won against Chris Eubank over five years ago. The Welsh southpaw deserves a super-fight and the payday that goes with it.

Mooted showdowns with Roy Jones and Bernard Hopkins have so far come to nothing, though Don King and Frank Warren have been in talks again recently concerning a match between Joe and the World Middleweight Champion.

As long as he is focussed on the task in hand, and the change of opponent not disrupted him unduly, Calzaghe should have more than enough to deal with Mr Pudwill from Virgil Hill territory, North Dakota.

Pudwill has 37 wins (14 inside), with only 4 defeats. His defeats perhaps tell us more about his chances Saturday than all his victories: stopped in eight rounds by the late James Hughes in 1994 and on points by Steve Martinez in 1995. He was floored three times and stopped in eight rounds by Anthony Stephens in a WAA (yes that's right) title fight also in 1995, though was beaten only on points in an IBF title challenge to Sven Ottke in June 2000. Ottke is no puncher, so perhaps we should not read too much into that.

The two stoppages, however, were when Tocker was campaigning at welterweight and light-middleweight. At 31, and a pro for 12 years, Pudwill has never met anyone with Calzaghe's hand speed and power at this level. If Calzaghe is in the mood, look for a Welsh win in four rounds.

For Ricky, his opponent is Joe Hutchinson, in what will be the Manchester man's eighth defence of his WBU title. Joe also has a reputation of losing the fights that could have helped him make the breakthrough to the very highest level. Hutchinson turned pro in 1995 and at 32, this is surely his last shot at the big time. With 24 wins (11 inside), 3 defeats and 2 draws, Joe is unlikely to be able to keep Ricky at bay for long.

Like Pudwill, his three defeats reveal more than the many victories on his record: beaten in successive fights by Arturo Gatti and Hector Camacho Jr. (both l pts 10) in 2000 and destroyed inside a round by tough Teddy Reid in August 2001. Although a southpaw, this should not cause Hatton undue problems, especially as Hatton's pet punch, the left hook, is the perfect weapon against a 'leftie'.

Apart from which, it was left hooks that did for Joe against Reid, in what was a USBA title fight, and Hatton's last win was against a southpaw, fellow Brit Stephen Smith.

Hutchinson, for what it's worth is the current NABC (??) king and is on a winning roll of four wins since the Reid shellacking. For Hatton, a big domestic showdown awaits against Junior Witter, with the ultimate target being World Champion, Kostya Tszyu late next year. It's unlikely that Hutchinson will spoil the plans.

Hatton has now won all 30 professional fights, with 23 opponents failing to hear the final bell. I'm afraid Joe Hutchinson will be stoppage victim number 24. Hatton will triumph in three.

Alex Arthur was a top class amateur who has taken the British professional ranks by storm. At 24, the Scot is making the first defence of the British Super-Featherweight Championship that he won against Steve Conway last month, in what will be only his 14th pro outing.

His opponent, Carl Greaves has challenged for this same title before, against Michael Gomez two years ago and was comprehensively beaten inside two rounds. He has rebounded with six wins since, but Arthur has that aura that special talents seem to ooze.

With 11 of his 13 wins coming inside the distance, it's a tall order for the challenger, who at 26, with a 26(4)-5 record, lacks the durability and certainly the power to trouble possibly the best prospect in Britain. This should be over in the first three rounds.