BBC SPORT | Boxing | Calzaghe ponders weight step-up

Joe Calzaghe has revealed he is prepared to move up to light heavyweight to finally secure a career defining fight.

The WBO super-middleweight champion has repeatedly failed to lure undisputed middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins into the ring.

Negotiations with the Hopkins camp about bringing the American star to the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, but any progress has been painfully slow.

Newbridge-born Calzaghe will make the 12th defence of his crown against North Dakota's Tocker Pudwill at the Telewest Arena, Newcastle on Saturday.

Cocky Calzaghe eyes the Executioner

I want to be a two-time world champion

Joe Calzaghe

And if he fails to secure the much anticipated 'superfight' against Hopkins next summer, Calzaghe says he will make his move up a weight division.

"I've got lots of goals I've yet to achieve," Calzaghe told BBC Wales Sport at his training camp in south Wales.

"I'm a young 30-year-old. Thank God, I haven't been in many wars and still like to think of myself as being pretty clean.

"I've come out of boxing pretty good, so I've got so much more to achieve.

"I'll see how it goes in the next six months, but if I don't get a fight with Hopkins after this defence, there's a big possibility I may move.

"I've been world champion for five years and I'm running out of opposition.

"I've got so much more ambition and if it means moving up a division to get a big, big fight, so be it.

Triple middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins
Hopkins has avoided a fight with Calzaghe
"I want to be a two-time world champion."

If Calzaghe does step up to the light heavyweight division, WBC, WBA and IBF champion Roy Jones Jnr would be his dream opponent.

But Jones, regarded as the world's best pound-for-pound boxer, is about to embark on an audacious career as a heavyweight.

He will be some 50lbs lighter than WBA champion John Ruiz when the two square up in March 2003.

Promoter Don King plans to match the victor against the winner of the fight between Evander Holyfield and Chris Byrd, who meet for the vacant IBF title on 14 December.

Whatever weight Calzaghe eventually decides upon, his next three fights will be live on BBC Radio.

A deal was reached on Tuesday to broadcast exclusive live commentary on BBC Radio Wales and BBC Radio Cymru.

The agreement begins with the Pudwill fight on Saturday, 14 December.

BBC Radio Wales website

BBC Radio Cymru website


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