Joe Calzaghe, the WBO world super-middleweight champion, has revealed his plan to retire from boxing in a year's time.

Speaking ahead of this weekend's super middleweight unification fight with Denmark's Mikkel Kessler, the unbeaten 35-year-old Welshman voiced fears his career could peter out if he did not retire at the top of his game.

Calzaghe has already expressed his wish to avoid the fate of one of his heroes, Evander Holyfield, who at the age of 44, and after several comebacks, is still forging a career in the ring - most recently in a failed attempt to wrest the WBO heavyweight title from Sultan Ibragimov earlier this month.

It appears Calzaghe now has a firm timescale in mind as he looks to wind down one of the most successful careers in British boxing history. "I realise the end is near," Calzaghe said. "I'm not going to be an Evander Holyfield and fight at 44, getting my head punched in.

"I'm giving myself a 12-month span to keep at the top and then I'll let it go. There'll be no comebacks.

"I realise I'm getting to that point in my career where you're not going to improve and you slowly decline - that's nature. But I still believe I'm at my peak, I still believe I've got a lot to give, I still believe I've got great fights in me."

The fight at the Millennium Stadium in the early hours of Sunday morning promises to be one of the defining moments of Calzaghe's career, and it is his 21st defence of the WBO title overall.

Victory would see him claim Kessler's WBC and WBA versions of the title and confirm his status as the dominant 12st fighter of his generation - he also held the IBF belt before giving it up.

Should that be achieved, Calzaghe admits there would be few challenges left facing him. "Winning this fight, I will add the WBC/WBA belt to my collection which means I have all four belts," he said. "I'm [The] Ring champion - what else could I possibly achieve?"

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