GWENT and Wales' supreme sportsman, Joe Calzaghe, faces the toughest challenge to his record eight-year reign as the world's supreme super-middleweight boxer at the MEN Arena, Manchester, in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The WBO champion, winner of all 40 professional fights, meets American IBF champion Jeff Lacy, winner of all his 21 pro contests, in a rare unification bout featuring unbeaten fighters.

Frank Warren believes it could be the best fight he has staged in 25 years as a promoter - and he has staged many great ones.

And the boxing world is almost totally split over who will win, the Welsh ace with a wide range of skills and 17 successful defences behind him, but who is 34 later this month, or the 28-year-old from Florida who relies on pressure, strength and punching power.

Former world super-middleweight champion Nigel Benn goes for Calzaghe and this week paid him the supreme compliment of saying he'd have defeated himself and other former champions Chris Eubank and Steve Collins had he been around at the same time.

Robin Reid, one of only two men who have fought and lost to both Calzaghe and Lacy, believes Lacy's power will win the day.

But Reid's trainer, Brian Hughes, believes Calzaghe will have too much skill for a rival still regarded as raw and limited by many.

That Lacy can punch there is no doubt. Seventeen of his opponents have been KO'd or stopped and he floored Reid, who had never been put down before, four times on the way to a seven-round stoppage last August.

Calzaghe beat a younger and more mobile Reid only on a split decision in 1999, but did so despite wrist and elbow injuries.

Omar Sheika, the only other boxer to have fought both, took Lacy to a close points decision in 2004, but was demolished in five rounds by Calzaghe in 2000. So the evidence is inconclusive.

Last time out Lacy, dangerous with both hands despite his nickname 'Left Hook', destroyed Scott Pemberton in two rounds, but Pemberton was 38, had been inactive and has since lost again just as spectacularly.

Calzaghe defeated the unrated Evans Ashira on points last time, but suffered a broken right hand in the fourth which caused the original scheduled November showdown with Lacy to be postponed.

Before that he had put up one of his best displays to destroy mandatory number one challenger Mario Veit in his German homeland in six rounds, having stopped him in one years earlier.

The Calzaghe doubters believe that this 'defining' fight, his last as a super-middleweight win or lose, has come too late.

They point to his age, that he has been put down in two of his last four fights, by American Byron Mitchell and Egyptian Kabary Salem, his tendency to get injured and his well-recorded struggles to make the weight.

If he is injured against Lacy, he certainly won't be let off the hook as he was against Ashira.

But he got up off the canvas to demolish Mitchell, never stopped before, with a barrage of punches in the same round two and also defeated Salem, though admitting it had been possibly his worst fight.

In the past, Calzaghe has usually reserved his best performances for the best opponents, among them several former world champions.

Lacy promoter Gary Shaw claims his man is a 'mini' Iron Mike Tyson and will be the biggest drawer in any division by the end of this year.

That is certainly over hype, but the Floridian obviously doesn't lack confidence, emphasised by the fact that he has been prepared to come to England for this fight.

But he lacks speed, is more of a slugger than a crisp puncher, and often winds up his punches in a way that leaves himself open.

Calzaghe has the skill, hand-speed and fleetness of foot to counter while also possessing sufficient punching power to put doubt in Lacy's mind (don't forget, he has stopped 31 of his opponents).

It may or may not be the classic encounter Warren and others predict for if Calzaghe does get drawn into a crowd-pleasing, toe-to-toe slugfest he will probably lose.

But if he keeps his cool, boxes behind his excellent southpaw jab and uses his hand-speed to frustrate an opponent who always moves forward, which Calzaghe prefers, I favour a points win and the world titles returning to Wales.

l On the undercard Swansea's big-punching WBU world cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli defends against another big-hitter British and Commonwealth champion Mark Hobson.

Maccarinelli had been due to meet WBO champion Johnny Nelson in another unification fight, but Nelson has been told by a surgeon his career is over after severing knee tendons.

Hobson, who hasn't fought for 15 months, is similar to Maccarinelli in many ways, both also having good jabs and both also capable of being floored.

It may come down to who can land the big punch first but another Welsh success is most likely.