Calzaghe edgy as Collins gets away from it all

Steve Collins has gone to Los Angeles to prepare for his world title fight on October 11th in Sheffield against the Welsh challenger, Joe Calzaghe. Collins is sharing gym facilities with the American heavyweight, Michael Moorer, who himself is preparing for a world heavyweight title fight with Evander Holyfield.

The reason for Collins going to the United States is that his trainer/coach Freddie Roach, is also committed to Moorer and could not get to Jersey where Collins normally trains. Collins has been in Los Angeles for the past two weeks.

Meanwhile Joe Calzaghe, Collins's named challenger, has been letting it be known that he believes Collins is trying to pull out of the fight again. "I have been told that Collins is trying to make excuses not to fight me and I have heard that he says he is injured. He tried to pull out before but Frank Warren wouldn't stand for it and threatened to have him stripped of the title. Now he is trying to find some other way out.

"If the fight doesn't go ahead I'll be devastated but not surprised. Collins is used to meeting opponents who are past their best as happened with Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn. He doesn't want to fight a young, hungry boxer like me. I'm like a lion with sharp teeth and the scent of blood in my nose. "He knows he can't beat me. He is slow and clumsy and he is afraid I would knock him out and finish his career. He is very lucky to have got where he is. Some of his opponents seemed to be in awe of him but he won't psyche me out. He knows he would get smashed and that is why he is trying to avoid me.

"If he manages to get out of it I will be demanding that he be stripped of the title and that I will then be allowed to challenge for the vacancy in the WBO division. Collins doesn't want to meet me. He wants to get a big pay night against somebody like Roy Jones. He wouldn't mind being beaten by somebody like that," said Calzaghe yesterday. In another development which suggests that a media circus is being put together in order to publicise the fight bill at the Sheffield Arena on Saturday week, Chris Eubank and Frank Bruno seemed to be putting their act together with the intention that Bruno would be in Eubank's corner in the event of Eubank making another comeback fight.

Neither would confirm that any arrangement had been agreed but Bruno said yesterday that he and Eubank were close friends and that, if there was any way in which he could help his friend then he would do so.

A Harlem street fight in 1988 over promoter Don King failing to pay fighter Mitch "Blood" Green $450,000 could end up costing former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson $25 million.

Green is suing Tyson for that sum in New York's Supreme Court on charges of civil assault for an early morning beating outside a clothing store. Green, 39, contends that King paid him only $30,000 after losing a 10-round decision to Tyson in 1986 when both fighters were to have been paid the same amount and Tyson received $450,000 for the bout.

Naseem Hamed is being lined up to make his American debut on December 19th. Colourful former world champion Kevin Kelley is the prospective opponent for the WBO featherweight holder on the pre-Christmas Madison Square Garden promotion.

Lennox Lewis believes the American fight fraternity would not be sorry to see him lose his WBC title in Atlantic City on Saturday.

The champion's manager Frank Maloney is worried that Lewis has been matched with the uncompromising Andrew Golota to knock him out of pole position in the world heavyweight stakes. After all, Golota is white, marketable and simply worth more money in the United States, while Lewis' last two fights have been huge, controversial let-downs.

Julio Cesar Chavez has been forced to postpone his WBC light welterweight title fight against fellow Mexican, Miguel Angel Gonzalez, to January after having to undergo an operation on his elbow yesterday. The two men were due to have fought for the title, left vacant by American Oscar de la Hoya, on Oct 25th.