Last night in Manchester, England Joe Calzaghe defended his WBO and IBF Super Middleweight titles in a bitterly contested brawl with challenger Sakio Bika. The Welshman couldn't decide on what role he would play; when Calzaghe boxed, Bika had no answers to the fast handed southpaw who made him look slow and clumsy in comparison but when "Super Joe" fought in the clinches with Bika it was a grabbing, wrestling, foul filled fest that resembled more a street fight than the sweet science.

For the first seven rounds, Bika didn't win very much except perhaps Calzaghe's respect; the champion was no longer showboating and clowning with the challenger as was the case early on. Calzaghe had picked up a cut above his left eye in the fourth as a result of Bika's free use of the head on the inside, with Bika losing a point in the process, and that changed the bout considerably.

By the eight and ninth rounds, Calzaghe grew weary from all the wrestling he and the heavily built Cameroonian fighter had been engaging in and Bika took his first rounds of the fight.

The rest of the contest was marked by periodic episodes of boxing, wrestling, shoving, wild punches and two very tired fighters. In the end, it was a fight befitting the rough and tumble nature of Britain's fight capital of Manchester. Both men continued several times after the bell had sounded close to a round, they each hurt each other during the course of the bout but no one was ever in trouble and things slowed down a bit in the last round when Calzaghe was hit low and took a 30 second break to recover before finishing the bout with a wide points decision.

After the bout Calzaghe stated that he had not been able to spar while training due to his problematic left hand and it was evident throughout much of the action that his timing was off. The champion went on to say that he wants to fight Bernard Hopkins next but one wonders how long "Super Joe" can continue in the game with his re-occurring hand injury cropping up with ever increasing frequency.

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