The Continuing Reign of Joe Calzaghe.

Back on Saturday night the longest tenured champion in all of boxing, Joe Calzaghe (44-0), defended power-punching Mikkel Kessler (for free) on HBO. Although the Dane proved to be one of Calzaghe's toughest opponents, he couldn't get enough going to out-point the aggressive champion. Calzaghe's reign has come in a weak division and he's hardly had to leave the UK to defend his titles, but the fact remains that he's won 21 consecutive fights as a champion. Kessler was the last of the serious competition amongst the super mids, so it looks like Bernard Hopkins is the next target. Calzaghe's promoter Frank Warren didn't waste much time before speculating on the future.

"Whatever he wants to do now, I will be right behind him. We would like to fight [Bernard] Hopkins, and he has suggested he would take the fight, so let's see if he is genuine about it or if they are just words. Joe would go and fight him in his backyard. If Hopkins wants it in Philadelphia, then that is where we would go."

I don't see any reason why this fight wouldn't happen, the only question that remains is that of the venue. As I said, Calzaghe has always forced opponents to come to him, but it's Hopkins that would make the fight a big event. Frankly, if the fight is held in Wales I don't see how Hopkins could leave with a favorable decision.

One other potential opponent could be Jermain Taylor. Once Kelly Pavlik dispatches of the over-sized middleweight he'll need somewhere to go and he'd be a great matchup for the free-wheeling Calzaghe.

In other Saturday action Juan Manuel Marquez defeated a bloodied Rocky Juarez in an action-packed clash on Showtime. It's not that often that you get to see one highly entertaining fight featuring a consensus top ten pound-for-pound champion of the world; on Saturday we had two, and neither was on Pay Per View.