03.03.06 – Photos: TOM CASINO / SHOWTIME: The Countdown Is One! Both IBF champion Jeff Lacy and his WBO counterpart, Joe Calzaghe, made the weight for their eagerly awaited super middleweight unification showdown Saturday on SHOWTIME (9 p.m. ET/PT, delayed on the west coast) at Manchester, England. Lacy weighed 167 pounds at Friday’s weigh-in while Calzaghe tipped scales at the division-limit 168 pounds.
by Stuart Cornwell: This may come as a surprise to boxing fans worldwide, but Joe Calzaghe is not actually particularly famous in the United Kingdom. The mention of his name would actually draw a blank from the vast majority (those “people in the street”), who would have no trouble telling you who Amir Khan and Audley Harrison are, and who can still tell you whether they preferred Chris Eubank or Nigel Benn.. There will be some who can tell you Calzaghe is a boxer but they would be unlikely to tell you if they have seen Calzaghe fight or name any boxer that Calzaghe has beaten. Anyone able to tell you anything substantial about Calzaghe and his achievements is likely to be a hardcore boxing fan, the type of person who reads Boxing News and Ring magazine, and visits boxing247.com.
The reason Calzaghe has remained so conspicuously anonymous may well be that he has fought almost exclusively on Sky Sports satellite channels and has not had the exposure that the likes of Benn and Eubank received for the bulk of their careers, and that Naseem Hamed received at the start of his. The lack of boxing on terrestrial and network TV on both sides of the Atlantic has certainly impacted upon the recognition afforded to boxers while at the same time reimbursing them handsomely with the profits acquired from satellite channel subscriptions and pay-per-view revenue. Not many among the last generation of elite American fighters can compete in terms of fame with their predecessors, simply because their superfights have not been broadcast into the living rooms of all America’s households at prime viewing time via the network channels – as was the case in the days of Ali and Frazier, Leonard and Duran. Even so, you would have thought that an UNBEATEN “world champion” who has reigned for eight and a half years, through 17 successful defences, (in a relatively small country with a long tradition for adulating its boxing champions), would be famous regardless of which TV station he is associated with. If you consider that at times Calzaghe has been Britain’s only world champion and that he holds the same title (WBO super-middle) that Chris Eubank used to hold, then it seems even more remarkable that he is just “Joe Who?” to the vast majority.
I could go on all day attempting to analyze the other reasons why Joe Calzaghe has remained unheralded and unknown to the man on the street (his lack of a defining blockbuster fight, his very forgettable and horribly dull appearance on the Mike Tyson-Julius Francis undercard, his general lack of stiff competition and perhaps a conscious effort on his part to remain out of the limelight) but what really matters is that now , with the fight against Jeff Lacy featuring live on British terrestrial TV (ITV1) this Saturday night (Mar 4th), Calzaghe has the chance to become a bona fide “household name” (home and abroad) and a British boxing legend for the ages. The Calzaghe-Lacy fight is a top-drawer match-up in world boxing, a strikingly significant fight. British viewers who have thus far been unaware of Calzaghe will have the chance to stay up on Saturday night and watch their “champion” in action IN A REAL FIGHT. This is certainly not the type of farcical match that many casual boxing viewers have been disappointed by over the years. Both fighters have proven enough to be considered “quality” fighters and will be fighting to go beyond that – to become “superstar” fighters, perhaps “great” fighters. With ITV broadcasting to the whole of the UK free of charge, and with The Ring magazine calling it for their vacant championship, everything seems to have fallen in place for Joe Calzaghe at long last. Now all he needs to do is beat Jeff Lacy !