WHAT a week its been in the Calzaghe camp. After all the waiting to have the David Telesco fight announced and now snatched away for whatever reason is totally frustrating and leaves a large hole in my preparations. Imagine an actor preparing for a new play where the story hasn't been decided!
I suppose it is none of our concern whether Telesco has manager trouble (as claimed last week) or it's because he can't make the weight - in which case both he and his manager(s) are both incompetent and unprofessional, as they should not have entertained the fight in the first place. I just hope that the next news I have is good positive news and this time it sticks.
People tell me these things are part of boxing and I suppose that my break with the fight against Chris Eubank was fate conspiring positively and being ready and able to grab the chance when it came along.
Too often, though, in boxing, the best don't want to fight the best and that may be why some feel the sport is on a down-turn. Let's compare this with, for instance, football, where so often the cliche: 'I'm moving to play at the highest level and to win things' is trotted out.
Alan Hudson, who was a great player in the 1970s and went through a horrific time particularly in the last few years after his road accident, said that one of the things that helped him to pull through was that in his career he had played with and against THE best of his generation, Pele, Beckenbauer, Cruyff and proved that he was as good as all of them.
They can say whatever they like about me, but they can't wipe the videos, destroy the Press cuttings and take away my memories or those of the people who were there. Boxing needs great fights and out of these come great boxers. Many boxers just seem to want to knock out dummies with monotonous regularity and fool the public and themselves.
Watson-Benn and Eubank-Collins was a great middleweight landscape in the early 1990s and they wanted to fight each other and that's why they captured the public's imagination and British boxing was on such a high.
Perhaps we are following the American sports model where less emphasis exists on actually going to the event as watching it on TV in which case you are much more passive about what is dished up in front of you. I repeat, boxing needs great fights.
Recapping the last week, Ernie Els, thoroughly deserved to win the Open. Coming into the last day he was my clear favourite to win, but the sudden death play off was something else. I couldn't see for the life of me how he could make that shot out of the bunker as it defied the laws of gravity and mechanics.
Over the next week or so we are going to be assaulted by the Commonwealth Games. As far as the BBC are concerned it's bigger than the Olympics so be prepared to watch ITV & Channel 4 for the foreseeable future.
I've got nothing against the Games themselves or even the Commonwealth, but a lot of the event leaves myself and a lot of others completely cold.
I've already got my abiding memory of the Games. As regaled a few weeks ago by dippy Norris on Coronation Street all volunteers have to wear a fetching purple tracksuit with a beret that is right out of Carry on Camping.
Stuart Pearce and Ryan Giggs at the baton ceremony in their fetching little numbers were a joy to behold, especially Pearce whose blood pressure was going up with each flash of the camera. If he hadn't retired already he would never get into a dressing room again.
That's it for another week please keep logging onto www.calzaghe.com and I hope forsome positive news on the fight front very shortly.
PICTURED: Joe Calzaghe's (right) title fight with Chris Eubank in 1997 came about, partly, because of luck.
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