Joe Calzaghe got his slice of the Big Apple yesterday - but he's warned he'll get a bigger bite back home in Wales.
The Newbridge star was talking the talk in New York where he came face-to-face with the tenth challenger to his WBO super-middleweight crown - American Charles Brewer. Welshman Calzaghe is across the pond promoting the eagerly-awaited showdown at the Cardiff International Arena on April 20.
But despite former two-time IBF middleweight champion Brewer describing Calzaghe as a 'cardboard champion' before he flew out - there was no Tyson/Lewis-type circus at a Press conference yesterday.
"I've heard that he's been mouthing off," Calzaghe told the Argus last night. "But he sat there quiet as a mouse at the press conference. He didn't say a word to me and I'm now ready to do all my talking in the ring."
Victory for Calzaghe in Cardiff could land him with a big money-spinning US debut against the highly-respected Bernard Hopkins, possibly in July.
But he's not counting his chickens - or roosters for that matter - until they're hatched. "All talk of that is going over my head," stressed the champ. "I've just got to look at Brewer because he's dangerous. I let people like my promoter Frank Warren handle all that." The Amercian media took warmly to Calzaghe at a specially-arranged lunch but it wasn't all razzmatazz for the Welsh hero.
On his first visit to New York, he was given a tour of Ground Zero, of which, he commented: "It was very, very sad.
"There will still a lot of women and children there grieving. Seeing it on television, you don't really appreciate the scale of it all".
*PICTURED: Joe Calzaghe (right) faces up to Charles Brewer in New York.
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