Calzaghe could win, but he’s no Hatton

There’s only one Joe Calzaghe

One Joe Calzaghe

Just walking along, singing a song

Walking in a Calzaghe Wonderland

It’s just not the same.

I miss Ricky Hatton. I miss his throng of wacky followers beating drums while storming hotel ballrooms and thinking lunch means three pints followed by five vodka shots followed by two whiskey chasers.

Joe Calzaghe doesn’t come close to matching Hatton for charisma or celebrity, here or in the United Kingdom. The only advantage Calzaghe has this week over the British fighter who brought 35,000 of his closest friends to Las Vegas in December is this:

He can win.

Calzaghe could enter the ring against Bernard Hopkins at the Thomas & Mack Center on Saturday night as a 3-1 favorite in their light heavyweight title bout, and the fight has every chance to be far more competitive and compelling than Hatton’s loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr.

But the hype leading up to it has generated the buzz of your cell phone vibrating, and what is a fight week without some sort of unscripted animation?

“Flat,” one writer from London said when describing the scene. “It’s all a bit stale.”

Hatton was never going to beat Mayweather. He didn’t have a chance then and won’t if a proposed second fight comes off in 2009. But for pre-fight electricity and charm, there is no one in the world with the punch lines and appeal of Hatton.

He sold the Mayweather fight, and it has taken another from across the pond to sell this one, although you could make an argument after attending a final news conference on Wednesday, there is much selling left to do.

I’m fairly certain everyone but the waiter clearing tables loudly stated that good seats are still available, which you would expect with ridiculous ticket prices ranging from $1,500 for the floor to $250 for View Level. “The American public will want to be there,” said Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer.

Not at those prices, it won’t.

This is a maiden attempt for Planet Hollywood Co-Chairman Robert Earl into the cutthroat sphere of hosting sporting events, and such journeys are usually met with some level of accepted financial loss. At worst, it’s a broader stage on which to market the Planet Hollywood brand.

Earl, though, on Wednesday looked mostly like a man wondering how much of his reported $11 million investment he might recover.

“I’m in this for the long haul,” he promised.

So was the Tennis Channel Open.

You can’t beat boxing news conferences for buffoonery and spin. There was HBO senior vice president Kery Davis trying to explain with a straight face why this is a major fight despite it not being offered on a pay-per-view basis, which is like those at The Mtn. trying to convince anyone theirs is a legitimate station.

There was Schaefer continuously promoting the matchup as “England versus the U.S.,” even though Calzaghe is from Wales.

England. Wales. Ireland. It’s all the same, right?

There was the 43-year-old Hopkins, who in no particular order talked about the media’s fascination with discovering the next Great White Hope (Lon Kruger?), accused a British journalist of challenging the credibility of American writers (which was good to hear we actually have some) and compared himself in one way or another to Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Jerry Rice, Martin Luther King Jr., Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Gandhi, Bill Russell, Satchel Paige and Jim Brown.

My guess is Hopkins’ 40-yard dash time has slowed with age, or Jesse Owens would have assuredly made the list.

It was comical at times, but none of it made us forget the guy that London-based newspapers can discover entire pages worth of space to describe his New Year’s binge, with a daily total of drinks consumed and pictures of him partying with fans while wearing clown glasses. I miss Ricky Hatton.

Calzaghe is 44-0 and has managed 21 title defenses. He is fighting for the first time on American soil, and still the betting money isn’t traveling its usual backward journey to the underdog, as much for the 5,000 British fans expected in town than anything. It could be a great fight. He should win.

But for buildup and vibrancy, I’ll take the other guy from the U.K.

Which, if you ask Schaefer, is located somewhere between Moscow and Shanghai.

Ed Graney’s column is published Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. He can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.