Joe Calzaghe vs Mger Mkrtchyan

Armenian-born Mger Mkrtchyan came into Calzaghe's 14th title defence as the No1 challenger. The pair were due to meet on December 6th but the champion had to pull out due to a bout of flu.

Mkrtchyan took the WBO No1 spot by travelling to Texas and stopping Freeman Barr in 3 rounds. There are no other notable names on the St Petersburg-based Armenians record.

In the early rounds, Calzaghe looked to take his opponent out with sustained two-handed attacks but Mkrtchyan was strong, rugged and determined. The champion realised that he needed to break down his challenger down and boxed at long range, picking his opponent off with fast jabs from his southpaw stance.

By the 6th round, Mkrtchyan was in perpetual retreat, forced back by the champion's accurate shots and he started to show the signs of a man that could see no way to win.

In the 7th round, Calzaghe dropped the challenger by the ropes and when he got up and wobbled on shaky legs, referee Paul Thomas took the opportunity to wave proceedings off at 1:05 of the round.

This was one of those Cardiff nights where the name on the away corner didn’t sell the ticket, Joe Calzaghe did. By 2004, he’d held that WBO super-middleweight belt for years, defending it at home, filling arenas, and still getting the same old grumble from the purists, “when’s he going to unify, when’s he going to go abroad, when’s he going to fight the so-called big boys?” Even Calzaghe was saying he’d had enough of waiting around for the other champions, Ottke in particular, and you could feel this defence was a tick-box job before he tried to force his way onto American television and into the light-heavyweight conversation.

Mger Mkrtchyan was tough-looking; no one in the UK knew who he was, and that’s exactly why the crowd only cared about what their hero was doing. Calzaghe made it look like what it was, a world champion doing his rounds, fast hands, awkward angles, and that busy jab that never lets a challenger set his feet. Mkrtchyan hung around on grit and stubbornness more than anything else, and if there was a moment early where he looked like he might’ve touched down, it didn’t change the pattern; he was being taken apart a little more each round.

By the seventh, it finished how Calzaghe fights usually finish, the challenger finally taking too many clean shots without giving the referee a reason to believe it’s going anywhere but one way. Calzaghe got him out of there in round seven, 14th defence done, crowd happy.