Joe Calzaghe

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Born
1972 (53 years old)

Birth Place
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Hammersmith, London, England

Position
Boxer

Status
Retired

Ethnicity
White

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Outfitter

Kit

Agent

Wage Year

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Sport

Fighting

Team
_Retired Boxing

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League
_Defunct Fighting Teams

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Description

Joseph William Calzaghe, CBE (/kælˈzæɡi/ kal-ZAH-gee; born 23 March 1972) is a Welsh former professional boxer who competed from 1993 to 2008. He held world championships in two weight classes, including the unified WBA (Super), WBC, IBF, WBO, Ring magazine and lineal super-middleweight titles, as well as the Ring light-heavyweight title.

Calzaghe is the longest-reigning super-middleweight world champion in boxing history to date, having held the WBO title for over 10 years and making 21 successful defences before moving up to light-heavyweight. As his super-middleweight and light-heavyweight reigns overlapped, he retired with the longest continual time as world champion of any active fighter. He was also the first boxer to unify three of the four major world titles (WBA, WBC, and WBO) at super-middleweight.

Between 2006 and 2008, Calzaghe was rated by The Ring as one of the world's top ten active boxers, pound for pound, reaching a peak ranking of third in January 2009. He retired in February 2009 with an undefeated record, and as a reigning world champion. BoxRec currently ranks Calzaghe as the best British super-middleweight of all time.

Calzaghe was often referred to as the "Pride of Wales" or the "Italian Dragon", the latter being a play on the moniker "Italian Stallion" and a reference to his multiple heritages (the dragon being both a prominent Welsh emblem that appears on the Welsh flag and a figure in Sardinian myth).

In 2007, Calzaghe became BBC Sports Personality of the Year, making him the first Welsh winner of this award since David Broome in 1960. Calzaghe was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2014.