The few times that Mikkel Kessler has stepped in front of the media in the run-up to his bout with Joe Calzaghe, he has never failed to make a good impression. Good looking, with an engaging smile and the Viking king tattoo that covers half of his torso hidden under a shirt, Kessler has been politeness personified. When he appeared with Calzaghe at a press conference in New York two months ago they caused outrage - they were just too nice.

That, according to Kessler, the 28-year-old Dane who puts his WBC and WBA titles on the line against Calzaghe’s WBO title, ends on Saturday night at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. He will have to learn to hate Calzaghe.

“When you stand there and say ‘I’m going to be the best’, there’s not a thing I can like about this guy,” Kessler said. “You can’t do that. You have to think that you are the best.

“People in America say ‘why no bad guy?’ You don’t have to be a bad guy. I respect him, he respects me and we are going to put on this great fight. On November 3, we’re going to hate each other.”

This week, Kessler has been holed up at the Vale of Glamorgan Country Club, where he has been profiting from facilities normally used by the Welsh Rugby Union, Cardiff City Football Club and Cardiff Blues rugby union club. Yesterday Kessler, who has a history of hand, elbow and back injuries, was keen to deny rumours that he had suffered a hand injury that had stopped him sparring.

“I have had a good four months of training, there is no injury,” he said. “The worst thing I had was a sore throat which stopped me training for two days.”

One of the two times that Calzaghe boxed outside Great Britain was in 2001, when he was chief support to Mike Tyson at the Parken national stadium in Copenhagen. Down the bill that night was Kessler, boxing in a six-rounder.

After he had won, Kessler changed and went to ringside to watch Calzaghe retain his WBO title against Will McIntyre. He has watched him many times since, although it is only in the past two years that he has thought of facing him. Last year he was ringside when Calzaghe dismantled Jeff Lacy.

“I thought that Joe would win, he was a better fighter, I was cheering on Joe,” Kessler said. “It maybe looked easy, but I think it was a tough fight because he had to watch out for the big right and left hooks coming at him. But he just totally destroyed Lacy. He was throwing one punch and all the time he had four punches coming back at him. It’s like he had never seen Joe fight.”

Kessler, seven years younger than Calzaghe, is a very different boxer to Lacy. He is hoping for a very different result, too.

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