Tarver calls out Calzaghe

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LONDON (TICKER) -- Antonio Tarver is adamant Joe Calzaghe will have to do more than beat Bernard Hopkins to become a true two-weight great.

Calzaghe moves up a division in Las Vegas on April 19 to clash with ex-middleweight champion Hopkins - holder of the Ring belt after the magazine nominated him the world's best light-heavyweight in the wake of his 2006 win over Tarver.

But brash 39-year-old American Tarver insists the true champion will emerge from the previous week's promotion in Tampa, Florida.

There, he will challenge Sheffield's IBF title holder Clinton Woods, while WBC champion Chad Dawson defends his crown against former world title-holder Glen Johnson.

The plan is for a showdown between the two winners to find the top man at 175 pounds.

"We're not going to speak of Calzaghe," said Tarver - in London yesterday for a heated verbal spar with Woods - before doing just that.

"He's a great super-middleweight champion but when he comes up to light-heavyweight, he's in uncharted waters."

Tarver tried to dismiss his own defeat at the hands of Hopkins.

"On my worst day, he couldn't put me out," he said. "I like Calzaghe in that fight because I think he's quick enough to get the job done against the old man."

But he warned Calzaghe, moving up after outclassing Denmark's Mikkel Kessler to add the WBC and WBA belts to the WBO title he had held for 10 years.

"Hopkins is crafty enough to make a good fighter look bad," Tarver said.

Tarver, insisting he is fully focused on becoming a real-life fighting star again after taking a year out to be Rocky's final opponent in the last Sylvester Stallone boxing film, at least recognized Calzaghe might just be something special.

But his American promoter Gary Shaw also dismissed the relevance of Calzaghe against Hopkins in the current light-heavyweight shake-up.

Hopkins' last fight, a points victory over former middleweight holder Ronald 'Winky' Wright, was made at 170 pounds, a weight between the super-middle and light-heavy limits.

"I'm not a believer of people making up their own weight classes in their own fights," Shaw said. "The last time I checked there was no 170-pound division in the whole of boxing and to me that's bad for boxing."

He also claimed the Tampa fights contain the better fighters.

"These are truly probably the four best light-heavyweights in the world - Antonio Tarver, Clinton Woods Glen Johnson, Chad Dawson," Shaw said. "Significantly, this is the biggest double-header of light-heavyweights in the world ever. It really is a great tournament and the winner will actually be the 175-pound number one in the world, bar no-one."

Both Tarver and Shaw were dismissive of the claims of the once-great Roy Jones Jr., who has thrown out a challenge to Woods - and tipped him to beat Tarver - after climbing back into contention with his recent victory over Felix Trinidad.

"Roy Jones, beating a Trinidad who hadn't fought for two years in his last fight, has no dance partner," Shaw said. "If Roy wants to think he is someone special again, he is going to have to fight the winner of this tournament somewhere down the line."

"Roy Jones is washed up - he beat a welterweight," Tarver added. "I'd love to fight him but he wouldn't want to fight me because he knows it's doomsday."