Joseph William Calzaghe was born in Hammersmith, London on March 23, 1972. His family moved to Wales when he was two years old.
During his boxing career he was known as The Pride of Wales and The Italian Dragon. He was a southpaw with an unusual style, having been trained by his eccentric Italian father Enzo.
Before retiring in February 2009 as one of Britain's only two undefeated boxing world champions, Calzaghe was the longest-reigning boxing world champion of the modern era. He has a fight record of 46-0, 32 of which were by knockouts.
The former Ring Magazine World Light-Heavyweight Champion, as well as former WBO, WBA, WBC, IBF, The Ring Magazine and the British super middleweight champion, Calzaghe held the WBO super-middleweight title for over ten years until he relinquished the title to concentrate on fighting at light-heavyweight.
Between 2006 to 2008, he was rated by Ring magazine as a top ten pound for pound boxer. Furthermore, he was rated as the second best pound for pound boxer in the world by the BBC, before he retired.
Calzaghe spent much of his career seeking fights against two of the biggest names of his generation, Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. It wasn't until the last two fights of his career that he managed to face them. He was knocked to the canvas in the first round against Hopkins, but managed to fight back to earn a split decision.
Calzaghe's final fight of his career was against Roy Jones Jr. Again he went down in the first round, but fought back. He cut Jones in the seventh before going on to a comfortable points victory to retain the Ring light-heavyweight title and end his career, undefeated, on a high.
In 2007, Calzaghe became BBC Sports Personality of the Year. He was also awarded the Young Boxer of the Year Award in 1995. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Queen's Birthday Honours.
