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He knew it all along but it wasn't until the wee hours of Sunday morning in Manchester, England that the best super middleweight in the world proved he was what he always said he was. It was only then that he finally made undeniable the fact that he was no ordinary Joe. Nearly 34-year-old Joe Calzaghe had waited all his professional life to prove this point to a skeptical world. He had once hoped to make his case at the expense of Bernard Hopkins or Roy Jones, Jr. but both eluded him for an assortment of reasons, few of his own making. But by 2:15 a.m. Sunday morning it was clear that his chance had come and he was going to take advantage of it.
By then the complete destruction of previously undefeated Jeff Lacy was underway. Calzaghe had opened their super middleweight unification fight at the MEN Arena in England's second largest city by thrashing the powerful Lacy in the first round, schooling him with combinations, battering him with hand speed like Lacy had never dealt with before and baffling him with slickness on the inside that would, within three rounds, leave Lacy's face a bloody mask of doubt and disappointment.
Calzaghe not only won every round of a unanimous 12-round decision, he won every minute of every round. Calzaghe's people had said they were unhappy at Lacy insisting on a 20-foot ring instead of the 22-foot one the WBO champion preferred but it would not have mattered whether the fight was held in a phone booth or somewhere on the vast Serengheti plain. There was no place on Earth where Jeff Lacy could have beaten Joe Calzaghe on March 5, including the United States, where the fight actually was televised on March 4th.
That's because everywhere Lacy went Calzaghe was already there blistering him with combinations or, if he chose to, he was already gone, having left Lacy windmilling ever more amateurish-looking hooks into the night air that Calzaghe slipped under and then countered. By the seventh round, Lacy was left to look like what Calzaghe and his father, Enzo, had insisted he was - a raw amateur baffled by how Calzaghe was destroying him and helpless to do anything but to endure it. When Lacy tried to charge inside to launch the powerful left hook that had spawned his nickname and left 17 men broken inside the limit, Calzaghe either stopped him with a hard right jab, slipped under Lacy's punches and tied him up or nailed him with a left uppercut or quick combinations that time after time found a landing strip in the midst of Lacy's ever-swelling face.
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By then the complete destruction of previously undefeated Jeff Lacy was underway. Calzaghe had opened their super middleweight unification fight at the MEN Arena in England's second largest city by thrashing the powerful Lacy in the first round, schooling him with combinations, battering him with hand speed like Lacy had never dealt with before and baffling him with slickness on the inside that would, within three rounds, leave Lacy's face a bloody mask of doubt and disappointment.
Calzaghe not only won every round of a unanimous 12-round decision, he won every minute of every round. Calzaghe's people had said they were unhappy at Lacy insisting on a 20-foot ring instead of the 22-foot one the WBO champion preferred but it would not have mattered whether the fight was held in a phone booth or somewhere on the vast Serengheti plain. There was no place on Earth where Jeff Lacy could have beaten Joe Calzaghe on March 5, including the United States, where the fight actually was televised on March 4th.
That's because everywhere Lacy went Calzaghe was already there blistering him with combinations or, if he chose to, he was already gone, having left Lacy windmilling ever more amateurish-looking hooks into the night air that Calzaghe slipped under and then countered. By the seventh round, Lacy was left to look like what Calzaghe and his father, Enzo, had insisted he was - a raw amateur baffled by how Calzaghe was destroying him and helpless to do anything but to endure it. When Lacy tried to charge inside to launch the powerful left hook that had spawned his nickname and left 17 men broken inside the limit, Calzaghe either stopped him with a hard right jab, slipped under Lacy's punches and tied him up or nailed him with a left uppercut or quick combinations that time after time found a landing strip in the midst of Lacy's ever-swelling face.
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