After Calzaghe's third-round stoppage of Peter Manfredo, Jr., he expressed his desire to unify his WBO/The Ring magazine titles with WBC/WBA champion Mikkel Kessler (39-0, 29 KOs), from Copenhagen, Denmark, as his next fight this summer or travel to the U.S. to take on Jermain Taylor.
"I would love for him to come to the United States to fight Jermain Taylor," said Emanuel Steward, Taylor's trainer, during the HBO broadcast.
"I am the fastest super middleweight in the world," declared Calzaghe. "I am ready to come over to America. It has been a goal of mine to fight in the United States against a big name."
"Per Joe's desire to unify the belts, I had already offered Mikkel Kessler a multi-million dollar purse, including his keeping the German and Danish TV rights, for a summer title unification fight," stated Calzaghe's promoter Frank Warren. "However, Kessler's promoter countered with a demand for parity and a 50/50 split on everything. Now look around Millennium Stadium today. Joe has sold a European record amount of tickets and generated publicity worldwide by successfully defending his title a landmark 20 times during a reign that has lasted nearly 10 years. Kessler is barely two years into his title reign and has very little name recognition outside his own country. We think he is an outstanding fighter and it would be brilliant if he and Joe would face each other next, but when a counter offer like that is made, it tells me his promoter doesn't want the fight. I can't believe that counter offer came from Mikkel. Joe is going to attempt to tie Sven Ottke's record with his 21st title defense this summer. I hope cooler heads prevail and it's against Mikkel Kessler."