Calzaghe must bide his time for title defence

JOE CALZAGHE will have to wait until May 24 to make the next defence of his WBO super-middleweight title.

Calzaghe is set to defend against American William Joppy but his opponent’s insistence on more time appears to have scuppered the original May 3 date.

The Welshman is also likely to have to travel back to Newcastle for the fight with no venues available in Cardiff on the new date. “William Joppy’s moaning means that I probably won’t fight him now until May 24 in Newcastle,” said Calzaghe.

“I read that he needs more time before he has a crack at my WBO title. Well, I can tell you that he’ll never be prepared to fight me.”

Meanwhile, Anthony Farnell believes his new-found maturity will sweep him to victory over Wayne Elcock in Manchester tonight. His fierce all-action style took him to the WBU middleweight title but his emotions occasionally let him down.

He threw caution to the wind against Takaloo in July, 2001 and suffered a first round knockout defeat.

And in June last year low blows cost him dear against Ruben GroenewaldFarnell’s win over Nikolai Talalakin last time out was a big improvement and the 24-year-old believes he will reap the benefit of his new approach against Elcock.

Farnell said: “I used to get worked up too much and go hunting for the knockout straightaway. But I learned from the two defeats and I’m not half as tense as I used to be. Elcock is an interesting challenger in only his 11th professional fight and ought to give Farnell a few scares.

He earned his shot with a points win over Russian Yuri Tsarenko in February and carries enough speed and power in his punches to cause problems.

If Elcock succeeds in sucking Farnell back into his old ways he could grab the title but the likelihood is the champion has learned enough to battle his way to another points win.