Ring magazine strip Calzaghe!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/boxing/default.stm

In an unprecedented move, The Ring magazine have stripped their Light Heavyweight champion Joe Calzaghe after recent comments the Welshman made to British journalists. Calzagh, 46-0, won the belt in a disputed contest with ring legend Bernard Hopkins last April.

The Ring's Editor-in-Chief Nigel Collins was said to be disappointed with Calzaghe's comments regarding fellow professionals Carl Froch and Oscar De La Hoya. Calzaghe also criticised the state of boxing saying that "boxing is dying". Collins said that he wanted to distance his publication from Calzaghe's controversial comments by severing any ties they had with the British boxing hero. Such a move has never happened before.

The prestigious Ring belt is usually awarded to the winner of a fight between the two best boxers in each division. Calzaghe won the Super Middleweight honour before moving up a division to "win" the belt during a hotly disputed decision against Bernard Hopkins. The Ring was quick to voice their disapproval of the Calzaghe-Hopkins result eight months ago with Collins stating that he thought Hopkins was "the real winner that night and that justifies our decision."

The last straw came when Calzaghe launched a scathing attack on the best fighter of the last 30 years, Oscar De La Hoya. De La Hoya bought The Ring magazine recently and his fans were said to be in tears by Joe's straight-talking about the Golden Boy. On the face of it, Calzaghe's comments appear to make a lot of sense but exceptions are made in this instance because Calzaghe has only fought in the USA just twice. Of those two fights, the combined age of his opponents was 82 years.

William Dettloff, a long time critic of the undefeated southpaw, applauded the move saying that it was "high time that Calzaghe was defeated". Dettloff went on, "Calzaghe only won the Ring belt at 168 because we were trying to build our own superstar in Jeff Lacy... I also had a big bet on that fight and have held a grudge ever since, much like the rest of the USA."

Calzaghe's reluctance to accept that he needed to go to the USA to fight upset a lot of people over a number of years. Boxing writers called him "stay at home" Joe. HBO (ironically, his recent paymasters) wrote an article entitled "No Frequent Flyer Miles" and others have resorted to saying he "slaps" his way through fights. There seem to be a number of reasons for the first ever double Ring champion to be stripped.

More soon...