By Keith Idec
CARDIFF, Wales - Mikkel Kessler mocked Joe Calzaghe's punching power prior to their showdown for super middleweight supremacy, calling Calzaghe "Cal-slappy" and promising that the Welsh southpaw wouldn't knock him out. Kessler was right about the knockout, but it was what he couldn't do that helped lead to Calzaghe out-pointing the previously undefeated Danish champion in their long-awaited championship unification fight Saturday night at Millennium Stadium, before a Calzaghe-crazed crowd of 50,014, a record for indoor boxing in Europe.
Kessler's crisp counter-punching and crushing uppercuts made Calzaghe look vulnerable in the first half of the fight, but a durable, resilient and all-too courageous Calzaghe took Kessler's flushest punches well and started to take control of the competitive bout by the sixth round. He hurt Kessler with a body blow in the eighth round, but neither fighter went down or appeared to be very hurt at any point in the fight. By the 12th round, a tired Kessler knew he needed a knockout, but "The Viking Warrior" couldn't
catch Calzaghe with a fight-altering right hand, even though Calzaghe abandoned caution and brawled with Kessler for much of the last round.
All three judges favored Calzaghe's jab, combination punching and activity level over Kessler landing harder, more damaging shots with a lot less frequency. Raul Caiz scored Calzaghe a 117-111 winner, while John Stewart and Massimo Barrovecchio both had boxing's longest-reigning champion in front 116-112. The area around the younger, stronger Kessler's left eye was noticeably swollen by the ninth round, but Calzaghe acknowledged that the fight physically taxed him, too, and not just because it didn't end until nearly 2:30 Sunday morning, local time.
"It was one of my hardest fights, definitely, and at the end I was tired," Calzaghe (44-0, 32 KOs) said of what was arguably the most meaningful fight in the 23-year history of the division. "I think I threw a thousand punches and he caught me with some good shots in the fight, stunned me a few times. So I knew he was going to come out for the knockout (in the 12th round). Maybe I should've run, held on a bit more and just danced away. But I stood toe-to-toe and I felt that the crowd got their money's worth tonight. We're both warriors and I think we fought a good fight."
His far more dominant victory over previously undefeated Jeff Lacy completely changed his career 20 months ago, but beating Kessler might be the most noteworthy win of Calzaghe's 44.
In defeating a supposedly superior opponent, the 35-year-old Calzaghe defended the World Boxing Organization 168-pound title he won 10 years ago for the 21st time, four short of Joe Louis' boxing record. He also won Kessler's World Boxing Association and World Boxing Council titles in what might've signified his last fight in the only division in which he has competed since turning pro 14 years ago.
Calzaghe has long struggled to sneak beneath the 168-pound limit and reiterated after defeating Kessler that he only wants to box three more times. After a vacation, he'll start seeking another big-money match, preferably at light heavyweight against Bernard Hopkins.
"I've never been one for rematches," Calzaghe said. "(Kessler is) only going to get stronger."
Naturally, Kessler seeks a rematch, though he probably knows better than to expect Calzaghe to grant him one now that one of Wales' national heroes has accomplished all he can at 168 pounds. Kessler will remain at super middleweight, but he has no idea who he'll fight next.
"I haven't thought about that yet," Kessler (39-1, 29 KOs) said. "He just crushed my dreams."
For now, the 28-year-old former champion will lament his approach to conquering Calzaghe.
"Maybe I should've punched more," Kessler said, "thrown combinations, instead of trying to punch hard."
In the co-featured fight, Wales' Enzo Maccarinelli, Calzaghe's gymmate, stopped late replacement Mohamed Azzaoui at the 58-second mark of the fourth round to retain his WBO cruiserweight title. The 27-year-old Maccarinelli (28-1, 21 KOs) dropped Azzaoui with a left hook to the liver and Azzaoui (22-1-2, 8 KOs) couldn't reach his feet to answer referee Dave Paris' count. The easy victory marked Maccarinelli's fourth defense of a title he won 16 months ago at the same stadium. The tall, heavy-handed champion hasn't lost since his fourth pro fight, a third-round knockout to England's Lee Swaby, who entered that fight with a 7-9-1 record.
The 31-year-old Azzaoui, an Auckland, New Zealand resident raised in Algeria, fought for the second time in three weeks and was a late replacment for Ezra Sellers (28-7, 25 KOs). He technically knocked out Nicaragua's Henry Saenz (16-7-1, 12 KOs), who quit after eight rounds on Oct. 13 in Moscow, on the Sultan Ibragimov-Evander Holyfield undercard. He had won 12 straight bouts before Maccarinelli stopped him, but against mostly overmatched opponents.
The British Boxing Board of Control wouldn't accept Sellers, 39, as Maccarinelli's opponent, so promoter Frank Warren made the fight against Azzaoui.
Keith Idec covers boxing for the Herald News of West Paterson, N.J., and The Record of Hackensack, N.J.
