LONDON (October 25, 2007) — WBC/WBA super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler may think he’s the new sheriff in town, but WBO/The Ring magazine super middleweight champion JOE CALZAGHE, aka SOUTHPAW JOE C WALES, the division’s longtime deadliest shot, is ready to lay down the law in arguably the biggest world title unification showdown of non-heavyweight champions since the Sugar Ray Leonard-Tommy Hearns welterweight rumble of 1981.
“I’m poisonous” said Calzaghe. “Training camp has gone so well, the Surgeon General asked me to wear a warning on my trunks for this fight: ‘Fighting Joe Calzaghe can be hazardous to your career and your title reign.’ Kessler will find out the hard way. I’m going to fill his face full of leather and his heart full of pain.
“I just hope he shows up next week and takes his medicine like a man,” continued Calzaghe. “Every reporter who interviews me tells me the same thing, they can’t reach Kessler. Is he in training camp or a witness protection program? I expect Kessler to be elusive when we meet inside the ring, but what the hell is he hiding from now? Even a groundhog pops his head out of his burrow occasionally. He’s boxing’s version of ‘Where’s Waldo?’ Poor Mikkel, on November 3 he’ll have nowhere to hide.”
Calzaghe (43-0, 32 KOs), from Newbridge, Wales, and Kessler (39-0, 29 KOs), from Copenhagen, Denmark, collide Next Saturday! November 3. Promoted by Frank Warren in association with International Entertainment, the Calzaghe-Kessler world super middleweight championship will be broadcast live to the U.S. from Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales on HBO World Championship Boxing at a special time: 9 p.m. ET/ 6 p.m. PT. Over 40,000 tickets have already been sold, shattering the European indoor record for a boxing event, which was set at Calzaghe’s last title defense, a third-round TKO victory over Peter Manfredo, Jr., on April 7. Over 35,000 tickets were sold for that fight.
Having held the WBO title since October 11, 1997, Calzaghe will be looking to successfully defend his title for a division-record 21st consecutive time — tops among active world champions — which would tie him with super middleweight champion Sven Ottke at fourth place on boxing’s all-time list behind heavyweight champion Joe Louis (25), light heavyweight champion Dariusz Michalczewski (23) and strawweight champion Ricardo López (23)