Calzaghe: I won’t lose it like Ricky

Calzaghe, who will earn a minimum $12million for fighting Bernard Hopkins in Las Vegas on April 19, has already dismissed the Philadelphian's racial slur, about never allowing himself to be beaten by a white boy, as a 'stupid comment for an adult' and will laugh in the face of the self-styled Executioner's attempts to unsettle him in the build-up.

Calzaghe believes Hatton was disturbed by similar stuff when he lost to Mayweather. Newbridge's undisputed world super-middleweight champion, who fights Hopkins at lightheavyweight, said: "'I was over there for Ricky's fight and even he will admit he let Mayweather's insults get to him.

"'He lost the game-plan a bit. I know that Ricky says as soon as he had a point deducted he lost his cool during the fight, but at the weigh-in you could see he was angry — and you can't be an angry fighter.

"Mayweather made Ricky too fired up, too aggressive. But Hopkins was over there, too, and when he tried to wind me up I was just laughing and giving him some back. I've got the temperament to take everything in my stride."

Hopkins is also guaranteed $12m, so expect the man who enters the ring in an executioner's mask and whose favourite gesture is a hand slashing across his throat, to be loathsome in the publicity build-up that starts in Las Vegas tomorrow. He will be angered by Calzaghe's comments yesterday, when London's