Rafael Román Martel

Cambridge, MA- Newly-crowned light heavyweight (175 lbs.) champion Joe Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) just can’t catch a break here in the States. For those who have not been keeping track of his career, it is easy to dismiss his decade of reign in the super middleweight (168) division as the unfortunate effect of fighting a series of obscure foreigners that never tested their mettle in this true Mecca of boxing, the US of A. Those who have been following explode like manic geysers with excuses to tarnish his pound-for-pound status—his opponents are too old, too slow, too inexperienced; he dances, he slaps, he’s too pretty. Whatever the excuse of the day is post-Hopkins, it’s hard to place Calzaghe in a fight after this that would embellish his career further.