By Mark Vester

After years of trash talking, UK rivals Carl Froch and Joe Calzaghe made peace at the WBC's recent "Night of The Champions" in Cardiff. Froch had been chasing Calzaghe for several years. When Froch became Calzaghe's mandatory, Joe vacated his title and moved up to light heavyweight. Once Froch put himself in line to fight Calzaghe again, then Joe retired in January 2009 and the fight became nothing more than a fantasy.

Even during Calzaghe's retirement the two fighters exchanged plenty of verbal jabs. They recently ran into eachother and the peace pipe was finally smoked.

"At the Cardiff event, I bumped into Joe Calzaghe. He came over and asked how the evening was going and congratulated me on the birth of my son, which was nice of him. Joe has two sons of his own, so knows as a father what a special time it is. We chatted generally about non-boxing stuff and he confirmed that his retirement is 100% permanent," Froch wrote in the Nottingham Post.

"While it would have been great to fight the recognized No.1 at the time in my division, you have to respect the man for knowing when the right time was to hang up the gloves. Joe admitted that by the time I'd knocked out Jermain Taylor in America, he was done with the sport and it wasn't to be."

"Then the press swarmed on us both, so we agreed to 'give them something to talk about' before jostling each other for the cameras. Joe tried to pick me up in a fireman's lift, but I think he put his back out!"

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