Joe Calzaghe vs Mikkel Kessler

More than 50,000 spectators stayed into the early hours at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium to see two unbeaten champions settle the leadership of the super middleweight division. After twelve rounds, Joe Calzaghe had supplied a clear answer. The Welshman overcame a strong opening challenge from Mikkel Kessler, gradually imposed his quicker, more varied boxing and won a unanimous decision. His twenty first successful defence of the WBO championship also brought him the Dane’s WBA and WBC titles. At thirty five, and after ten years as a world champion, Calzaghe had beaten an opponent whose strength, composure and punching power demanded considerably more than an exhibition of fast hands. The attendance was reported as 50,150, with a substantial Danish contingent contributing to the noise.

The contest, promoted by Frank Warren’s Sports Network on 3 November 2007, brought together Calzaghe’s record of 43 victories without defeat and Kessler’s 39 successive wins. Calzaghe had established his wider reputation by outclassing Jeff Lacy in March 2006, but Kessler offered a different problem. Seven years younger, the Dane combined a firm left jab with straight rights and an accurate uppercut, and was sufficiently disciplined to counter rather than merely follow his opponent. Calzaghe weighed 166 pounds, two below the division limit; Kessler weighed 168. The late start accommodated American television, with HBO carrying the contest live. Before the boxing began, the Welsh singing and the flags among the visiting supporters gave the stadium something of the character of an international football ground.

Neither man took unnecessary liberties in the first round. Calzaghe feinted and tried his speed against Kessler’s guard, occasionally reaching the body, while the challenger to his long reign looked to establish the distance for his jab and right hand. Kessler became more effective in the second, finding Calzaghe as the southpaw came forward and showing that he could interrupt the Welshman’s combinations with straight, well timed punches. In the third, Kessler went down during an exchange, bringing an immediate roar from the crowd, but referee Mike Ortega correctly treated the fall as a slip. Calzaghe pressed him towards the ropes and put punches together more freely, although Kessler continued to answer. There was already a marked difference between their work: Calzaghe attacked in bursts from changing positions, while Kessler sought fewer, firmer connections through the openings.

The fourth brought Kessler’s most convincing early success. Calzaghe’s eagerness to close the distance left him leaning into range, and the Dane met him with hard rights and uppercuts. One right uppercut snapped the Welshman’s head back and checked his advance. Kessler was keeping his balance under pressure and finding room to punch between Calzaghe’s attacks, making this a much less comfortable undertaking than the Lacy contest. His uppercut remained a threat in the fifth, when Calzaghe began to show more caution about his entries. In the Welsh corner, Enzo Calzaghe demanded greater use of the jab, while Warren urged his boxer to resist an unnecessary exchange of heavy punches. The instructions addressed the central difficulty: Calzaghe could compete with Kessler at close quarters, but he was giving the Dane opportunities by arriving there too openly.

Calzaghe’s sixth round was an important change in the contest. He worked more effectively behind his right jab, followed with the left and made Kessler reset before the Dane could deliver his own combinations. His activity became more orderly without losing its pace. Rather than making every approach a rush, he began winning the exchanges through positioning and the first punch. Kessler still had successes in the seventh, including a strong right, but Calzaghe’s replies prevented him from building sustained pressure. The Welshman mixed punches to the body with his attacks upstairs and increasingly dictated when the exchanges began. Kessler remained dangerous, yet his best blows were becoming isolated answers to a busier opponent. The speed of Calzaghe’s lead hand was especially troublesome, obstructing the Dane’s jab and leaving him waiting for openings which had been more readily available earlier.

In the eighth, a hard body punch hurt Kessler and Calzaghe moved forward to follow his advantage. Ortega interrupted to warn the Welshman for hitting behind the head, allowing the Dane a brief respite; there was no point deduction. Kessler subsequently identified the body blow as one of the decisive incidents of the fight. He continued to compete, but Calzaghe was now making him work at an increasingly uncomfortable pace. During the ninth, tenth and eleventh, the home boxer’s jab, movement and repeated combinations gave him control. He could score, alter his position and leave Kessler struggling to organise a reply. The Dane’s left eye swelled, and his face showed the effects of the accumulated punching. His corner urged him to seek a knockout, but the accurate single blow which might have changed matters was difficult to find against an opponent who was still moving and punching so freely.

Kessler made a determined final effort in the twelfth. He landed rights and an uppercut, showing that neither his ambition nor his punching power had entirely deserted him. Calzaghe answered and continued to engage sufficiently to give his opponent chances, although the Dane could not recover the rounds already lost. Both remained standing at the finish, with no official knockdowns recorded. The figures from CompuBox illustrated the difference in sustained work: Calzaghe landed 285 of 1,010 punches, against Kessler’s 173 of 585. Most telling was the jab, with Calzaghe credited with 137 connections to Kessler’s 52. Kessler landed a higher proportion of his power punches, 47 per cent against 32, but Calzaghe’s greater output and command of distance had carried the contest away from him.

The official decision reflected that superiority. Massimo Barrovecchio and John Stewart each scored the fight 116 to 112, while Raul Caiz Sr returned 117 to 111, all for Calzaghe. The winner advanced to 44 victories without defeat; Kessler suffered his first loss in forty contests. Calzaghe retained his Ring magazine championship alongside the three sanctioning body titles, and attention immediately turned towards a possible move to light heavyweight and a meeting with Bernard Hopkins. Kessler had supplied a genuine test and remained competitive to the last bell, but he had been unable to match the adjustments which followed his early successes. Calzaghe’s explanation was straightforward: “When I put my boxing together, he couldn’t get past my jab.” It was an accurate account of how a difficult fight had been won.