As dozens of journalists battled for a soundbite from Joe Calzaghe at B. B. King’s Blues Club on 42nd Street yesterday, it was difficult to imagine that there was a time when American writers would not give Calzaghe the time of day. The Welshman has been greeted in New York as a great, as the pound-for-pound best boxer in the world. But to be a great, a champion needs a legacy, and Calzaghe has had to work hard to earn his.

On Saturday, at Madison Square Garden, Calzaghe faces Roy Jones Jr, the legendary four-weight world champion. The only belt on the line is the light-heavyweight title as recognised by The Ring magazine, a crown with plenty of historical connections, although the reality is that the magazine is now owned by Golden Boy, the promoter. Respect has been something that Calzaghe has often found difficult to find. “Stay at home Joe” and “Slappy Joe” are tags often bandied about to denigrate his achievements. The latter, a reference to his supposed inability to throw correct punches, is untruthful. Calzaghe sometimes sacrifices power for speed, but his record of 32 stoppages in his 45 wins shows he knows how to punch.

The former is more relevant. His win in April over Bernard Hopkins was his first in the United States and only his third outside Britain. For too long during his 11-year reign as WBO super-middleweight champion — the third-longest of any world champion in history — Calzaghe faced second-rate opposition at home. It took until his 2006 unification win over Jeff Lacy, the American IBF champion, for Calzaghe to get the respect he felt he warranted.

But coming to America mattered little to Calzaghe. When he faced Hopkins, he admits that he took it too lightly. “It didn’t really mean much to me,” Calzaghe said. “I walked out in front of 50,000 at the Millennium Stadium. I’m not overawed by Vegas. The atmosphere for me was nothing and it was a boring fight to be involved in.

“If I had had my way, this fight would have been in Cardiff. But the bottom line was that HBO wouldn’t do a pay-per-view fight if it wasn’t in America, so I had to come here. Boxing has changed. America is not No 1 any more. Look at what they did at the Olympics — one medal. There are more good fighters in Europe than there are in the US, but not many top Americans come to Europe.”

During his career, staying at home also made financial sense. Showtime, the US cable television network, was happy to screen his bouts from Britain and the live gate dwarfed anything he could hope to manage in the US. But out of sight, out of mind. The American boxing fraternity, an insular group, chose to ignore his achievements and Calzaghe and Frank Warren, his promoter until this contest, walked a fine line between maximising profits and minimising risk.

For most of his reign, Calzaghe’s biggest rivals declined to face him. Sven Ottke, the German who held the IBF and WBA titles, would not entertain a unification match, even in Germany. Hopkins agreed to face Calzaghe in 2003, only to double his financial demands the next day. When they eventually did meet, Hopkins was 43.

“I missed the golden super-middleweight era,” Calzaghe said. “I would have loved to have fought the likes of Benn and Watson. I beat Eubank to win the title and Collins retired rather than fight me. My career lacked that big rivalry. I boxed five former world champions and had to wait nearly nine years to get a unification fight. Why did I fight them when they were former champions? It wasn’t my choice, but I imagine they were cheaper when they lost their titles.

“It was me that insisted on my last two fights. After I beat Lacy, I didn’t want to face Sakio Bika or Peter Manfredo. Beating them was undoing the good work I had done against Lacy.”

Ironically, Kessler and Hopkins have done most to underline his claim for greatness since the Welshman beat them. Kessler regained the vacant WBA super-middleweight title and defended it in style, crushing Danilo Häussler in his most recent defence. Hopkins outboxed Kelly Pavlik, the WBC and WBO middleweight champion, proving that he was not past it and removing Calzaghe’s only realistic big-name opponent should he win on Saturday and decide to continue.

But win or lose against Jones, if this is the end, Calzaghe is leaving the sport on top.