Contrary to popular belief, the longest world championship reign is not at an end. Joe Calzaghe made it clear yesterday that he is not giving up the WBO super-middleweight title he has held for more than a decade and that he may not be retiring this year after all.

Calzaghe returns to his gym in Cwmcarn, South Wales, this week to start work for his next bout, against Roy Jones Jr in New York on September 20, which will be at light-heavyweight. In his first interview since he split from Frank Warren, his long-time promoter, Calzaghe told The Times that he would consider facing Kelly Pavlik, the world middleweight champion, if he beats Jones, and that he may make a return to super-middleweight.

A story emanating from the United States yesterday said that Calzaghe had given up his WBO title (one of three he holds at super-middleweight, with the WBA belt and the title awarded by The Ring magazine) and that Karoly Balzsay, of Hungary, and Jean Pascal, of Canada, the WBO's two leading contenders, would contest it.

But Calzaghe denied that this was the case, saying that his status as a “super champion” by the WBA and WBO means that he has extra time before having to make a defence.

“There is no way I am going to give up my WBO title,” Calzaghe said. “I do not have a mandatory [challenger] at the moment, so I do not have to defend my title. If I beat Jones, I might move back down to super-middleweight to face Kelly Pavlik.”

Calzaghe, 36, has held the WBO title for ten years and 250 days, making it the longest world title reign by a Briton. He won the WBO title by beating Chris Eubank in October 1997 and has successfully defended it 21 times, most recently last November, when he beat Mikkel Kessler, taking the Dane's WBC and WBA titles. Calzaghe won the IBF and IBO titles from Jeff Lacy in 2006 but vacated both. He is one of only two boxers to have held all five recognised world titles in one division.Calzaghe's reign is a little more than a year less than the all-time record of Joe Louis, who held the world heavyweight title in the 1930s and 1940s for 11 years and 252 days.

This week Calzaghe has returned from a holiday with his two sons in Sardinia to begin training for his bout against Jones, 39, a four-weight world champion, at Madison Square Garden for The Ring's light-heavyweight title, which he took from Bernard Hopkins in April. It had been expected to be his last bout because retiring unbeaten - he has won all his 45 bouts - has been in his mind for the past 12 months. Now Calzaghe has doubts.

“I still feel young,” he said. “It all depends on how I perform against Jones. There's a good possibility I may fight on. I need fights that motivate me. Kessler motivated me, Hopkins motivated me, Jones motivates me. And Kelly Pavlik has been hanging around.”

He added that he would not let the break from Warren, which is threatening to become bitter, affect him. “I have a job to do and I just have to do it,” Calzaghe said.

Perhaps what most motivates Calzaghe to continue is his rise to star status in the US. “It took me eight years [as champion] to get a unification fight - I was becoming a laughing stock with some of the people I was fighting,” he said. “I was chasing guys like Jones; now they are chasing me.”

One belt that Calzaghe has given up is his WBC super-middleweight title. Yesterday the WBC announced that Carl Froch, the British champion, and Jermain Taylor, the former world middleweight champion from the US, would contest the vacant title.

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