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Boxing world is Calzaghe's oyster

06/03/2006

Joe Calzaghe has the entire boxing world in the palm of his hand, according to leading US fight promoter Gary Shaw.

The Pride of Wales Calzaghe, 33, put in one of the all-time great performances to beat highly-rated American super middleweight Jeff Lacy in their division unification bout at Manchester's MEN Arena in the early hours of yesterday morning.

He has been criticised in the past for not fighting the sport's top boxers but this performance, which added the IBF world title belt to his WBO belt, has instantly dispelled the doubters and Shaw, who promotes Lacy, admits he is now one of Calzaghe's biggest admirers.

"Calzaghe was highly underrated for sure, and I was one of the ones to underrate him," Shaw said. "I make no excuses for making this fight, I would have put my house on this not being the result."

He added that Calzaghe's future is now extremely bright because the fight, although staged in the UK, was aimed at the US market, explaining its approximate 03:00 GMT start time, and that everyone in the States now knows who Calzaghe is.

"There are a lot of fights opening up for him that we thought were there for Jeff," the promoter added.

With Calzaghe winning the battle of the unbeaten duo, he now still has the unblemished record of 41-0 and praise has been lauded on him with pundits proclaiming him to be one of the top three pound-for-pound fighters in the world.

"That for me was the best performance by a British boxer that I have been involved with, and I have been involved in some great fights over the years," said Calzaghe's promoter Frank Warren.

Lacy's trainer Dan Birmingham heaped even higher acclaim on the Welsh boxer, saying: "Forget Britain, I have never seen a better performance than that in the world."

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