Joe Calzaghe would rather have three career-defining bouts than break any more records. Calzaghe, 35, has held the WBO super-middleweight title for nearly ten years and stands on the cusp of two of the sport’s greatest landmarks. He needs five more defences of his title to match Joe Louis’s all-time record of 25 world-title defences, while he is six bouts away from matching Rocky Marciano’s unblemished 49-0 career record.

But it is not the records that interest Calzaghe, it’s the big occasions. “I would rather have two or three really big fights than six easy ones,” Calzaghe, whose autobiography, No Ordinary Joe, is published tomorrow.

“The fight I would want now is Jermain Taylor, despite his poor performance against Cory Spinks at the weekend. I’ve had poor performances too, so I know what it’s like. Then, maybe, the winner of the Bernard Hopkins-Winky Wright fight.

“I think Mikkel Kessler can be a bigger fight down the road. I can see another Lacy situation with him, there a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon with him, saying he will beat me, but a lot of these people have never even seen him fight.

“I’ve seen his style, he’s a really good fighter, but I’ve got the style to beat him. That’s the sort of fight I would really get up for."

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