Manfredo a legitimate top ten contender had been coming off impressive knockout wins over former world title challenger Scott Pemberton and undefeated prospect Joey Spina and was given a serious chance by most American boxing writers, this boxing writer included of being a moderate to serious threat to Calzaghe’s title.

When the bell rang, it became evident that Manfredo was simply out gunned and unable to deal with Calzaghe’s quick hands. In the third round a flurry of punches forced Manfredo on the ropes and although most of the punches were blocked Manfredo was unable to answer with any offense and that resulted in the fight being stopped in what some would consider a controversial stoppage.

Official time of the stoppage was 1:30 of round three… with the win; Calzaghe joins an elite group of fighters who have successfully defended their world title twenty times. Bernard Hopkins successfully defended the middleweight title twenty times from 1995-2005 becoming the only fighter in history to be a truly legitimate undisputed champion having unified all four recognized world titles in the division before finally losing back to back controversial decisions to Jermain Taylor in 2005.

The all-time record was set by former heavyweight champion Joe Louis who successfully defended his title an incredible twenty-five times between 1937-1948…

On the undercard, jr. welterweight prospect Amir Khan scored an easy third round knockout over unknown contender Steffy Bull. Bull was never in position to do anything offensive against the aggressive Khan the end came with a brutal left hook to the liver that sent Bull down for the count.