Joe Calzaghe vs Peter Manfredo

Joe Calzaghe made his twentieth WBO super-middleweight title defence on 7 April 2007, meeting Peter Manfredo Jr. in Cardiff's Millennium Stadium. 35,000 packed the venue, the closed roof capturing the unique energy as Calzaghe entered to a passionate Welsh reception. HBO broadcast the fight in the US, while ITV Sport handled UK coverage, reflecting significant transatlantic promotional interest.

The WBO and The Ring super-middleweight titles were at stake, both held by Calzaghe, unbeaten in 42 contests with 31 stoppages. He vacated the IBF title, declining Robert Stieglitz as his mandatory challenger to make a voluntary defence against Manfredo. Some criticised the decision, though bringing an American name to Cardiff had commercial logic. Manfredo's popularity rose from The Contender reality series. His amateur record included a bronze at the 2000 Eastern Olympic Trials, and he beat decent professionals; however, his résumé gave no indication he could challenge Calzaghe's quality.

Manfredo's stated strategy was to allow Calzaghe to burn himself out, banking on the champion's tendency to work at a ferocious pace and hoping that fatigue would open the fight up in the later rounds. It was a theory with some surface logic, given that Calzaghe was thirty-five years old and had at times shown a tendency to start conservatively before building into a contest. In the event, the plan never had the opportunity to be tested. The opening round was one-sided but relatively uneventful, with Manfredo barely landing a meaningful punch on the champion. Calzaghe was watchful and measured, moving on the outside and throwing the kind of sharp, fast combinations that had been his calling card throughout his career. Manfredo, taller and rangier in his approach, attempted to stay at a distance and look for counters, but found the champion's southpaw angles difficult to read and his hand speed something considerably beyond what he had encountered before.

Through the opening two rounds, Calzaghe landed scoring shots and quick combinations, with Manfredo boxing at range defensively and attempting to counterpunch. As the second progressed, it became apparent to those at ringside that Manfredo's defensive work, while tidy, was not producing anything in return. Calzaghe, having assessed his man in the first, began to use fast in-and-out footwork to out-jab and counter the challenger with increasing authority. The crowd, sensing the nature of the performance to come, grew louder with each exchange. Manfredo threw combinations of his own on a handful of occasions, reaching for the jab and trying to establish a rhythm, but Calzaghe's reflexes were sharp, and his movement made the American's work largely ineffective.

In the third round, Calzaghe stepped up the pace and was catching Manfredo with fast shots on the ropes when referee Terry O'Connor stepped in and called a halt to proceedings. The stoppage came as Manfredo stood with his back against the ropes, absorbing a sustained burst of punches to the head and body without returning fire. O'Connor, a vastly experienced British official, appeared satisfied that the challenger had no answer to what was coming and that continuance served no purpose. The HBO ringside team declared the stoppage was way too quick, and several American commentators echoed the call. Manfredo himself argued it was premature, as he did not appear hurt at the moment the fight was waved off. Trainer Emanuel Steward, however, contended that while the stoppage may have been open to debate on timing, Calzaghe was clearly on course for victory regardless. Notably, in the post-fight interview, both Calzaghe and Manfredo said they felt the stoppage had been premature, a rare instance of champion and challenger finding common ground after a short and one-sided contest.

The argument about O'Connor's intervention was largely a distraction from the more pertinent question of whether the match-up had ever made competitive sense. Manfredo was a capable professional who had earned his opportunities, but the gap between a fighter who had performed well on a television series and one who had held a world title undefeated for over a decade was considerable. Calzaghe improved his record to 43-0 with 32 stoppages, and the performance, while brief, demonstrated that he retained the speed and accuracy that had made him so difficult to deal with throughout his championship reign. The only minor concern for his camp was that, even in such a short contest, Calzaghe had not been seriously tested, and the questions about how he would respond to sustained pressure from a quality opponent remained unanswered.

The undercard provided additional entertainment for the Cardiff crowd. Enzo Maccarinelli stopped Bobby Gunn to retain his WBO cruiserweight title, keeping Welsh boxing's momentum going, while Michael Jennings defeated Takaloo for the WBU welterweight title, and Bradley Pryce, Amir Khan, and Kell Brook all featured on what was a substantial evening of domestic boxing. A young Nathan Cleverly was also on the bill, extending an unbeaten run that would eventually bring him a world light-heavyweight title.

For Calzaghe, beating Manfredo was a stepping stone to bigger challenges. Within months, Frank Warren confirmed Calzaghe would fight undefeated WBA and WBC champion Mikkel Kessler in a unification bout at the Millennium Stadium in November. That event would be the true test of Calzaghe's place among super-middleweights. The Manfredo fight mainly served its commercial purpose, giving Calzaghe a routine outing after five months out and providing HBO with a highlight for American audiences ahead of larger contests.

I remember this fight mainly because some years earlier, we’d all watched the Contender series from America. Manfredo was beaten by Alfonso Gomez, then somebody else had to pull out because of an illness. They brought Manfredo back in, and he then beat Gomez in the semi-final, which got him through to the final against Sergio Mora, who won a unanimous decision, a million dollars, and the Contender Series championship. As you can imagine, back then, there was nothing else like it on television. You had Sylvester Stallone and Sugar Ray Leonard running things. Then you had the trainers. I remember Buddy McGirt, Pepe Correa, Freddie Roach and Naazim Richardson being in there. It was a great, great series to watch week after week for boxing fans.

That’s how we all got introduced to Peter Manfredo. When he got the chance at the title, we all sat up and watched it because we wanted to see how someone who got through to the finals would do in the ring with someone as great as Joe Calzaghe. He was a great pro, Manfredo. His old man had been a fighter, and I think all he ever wanted to be was that. He gave it everything he had, but there was quite a gap between Calzaghe and Manfredo as far as levels are concerned. After the Calzaghe stoppage, he bounced back quickly, winning a couple of fights within two months. Later in 2007, he faced former IBF champion Jeff Lacy and lost a 10-round decision, dropping him to 29-5. He kept busy through 2008 with a string of wins, then got a second world title shot against Sakio Bika — the Season 3 Contender winner — for the IBO super-middleweight title. He was knocked out in the third round.

That Bika loss hit him hard. He retired, and in what became a widely told story, he ended up taking a job with the Local 271 Labourers Union in Providence — and was assigned to clean the Dunkin Donuts Center, a venue he had headlined not long before. He later described watching the De La Hoya-Pacquiao fight at his grandmother’s house between shifts.

It didn’t stick. He came back, moved down to middleweight, and in 2010 won the IBO middleweight title by stopping Angel Hernandez in a tough fight at Mohegan Sun Casino. That was his career peak in terms of hardware. In 2011, he got a WBC middleweight title shot against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and was knocked out again. He won three more fights after that before retiring at the end of 2013, then came back yet again in 2016, and finally called it quits for good in 2019 at age 39, finishing with a record of around 41-8.

He ended up working construction in Boston, out of Local 22, starting around 6am daily. By all accounts, he’s philosophical about the whole ride — and proud that nobody can say he didn’t fight the best, having shared a ring with Calzaghe, Chavez Jr., Lacy, and Bika.