Boxing: Big Joe's decision to retire showed courage; COMMENT.

Byline: By FRANK MALLEY

JOE CALZAGHE'S last contest was not a boxing bout - it was a wrestling match. A wrestle between preserving a legend and bidding farewell to the ring after 46 unbeaten fights or going on to swell a bank account which, while a fortune to most of us, is by no means in the super league of some of his contemporaries.

In the end common sense won and Calzaghe retired, even though his box-office appeal has never been greater.

Make no mistake, that took guts.

Knowing when to finish is a great fighter's hardest decision.

Muhammad Ali got it horribly and tragically wrong. So did Joe Frazier and George Foreman and Mike Tyson.

So has Evander Holyfield who made yet another comeback, a losing one, inDecember at the age of 46, but who doubtless will be back again.

You can see why. Retirement for most men is an opportunity to indulge themselves in things they have always wanted to do but never had the time.

Retirement for fighters can be a sentence to be endured.

That was obvious in the fact that even as Calzaghe, 37 next month, announced his retirement, he could not quite bring himself to hurl the gloves on the fire.

"You can never say never in this game," he said. "But I can't see myself boxing again.

There's loads of things Iwant to do. I'mproud to be one of only a few fighters in history to retire undefeated."

Like his great icon, Rocky Marciano, who retired after 49 fights, the only heavyweight champion never to have tasted defeat.

There is no doubt Calzaghe, who reigned supreme at super-middleweight and then light-heavyweight for a total of 11 years, could have carried on at the highest level, beating all comers, earning millions.

If you do not believe that then watch the video of his final victory last November against Roy Jones Jnr.

You will not see a man thrashing around, fighting on memory as the sun goes down on a once mercurial talent. Not unless you look in the Jones corner.

Instead youwill see in Calzaghe a fighter in perfect communion with his chosen sport. A man whose work ethic in the ring saw him throw 985 punches in 12 rounds and still have time to indulge in the showboating antics which appeal to the American audience.

Aman whose lips smiled and eyes sparkled and whose spirit reached into the core of his greatness when he was knocked down in the first round, just as he was against Bernard Hopkins, only to rise and spit in the face of potential defeat.

A man who was loving it.

Of course, critics would argue that Jones and Hopkins were past it.

Yet while part of Calzaghe's career was laced with innocuous fights, because of the lack of credible opponents as much as his desire to fight at home, the fact remains that in the past three years he demolished Jeff Lacy, outpointed Mikkel Kessler in a boxing masterclass and recovered from those two knockdowns to beat Hopkins and Jones.

Was he the greatest British fighter of all-time?

It is difficult to say because how do you compare the savagery of Nigel Benn, the pressure fighting of Barry McGuigan or the lightweight genius who was Ken Buchanan?

And how do you dismiss the claims of three-time world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, who retired as undisputed champion having beaten Holyfield, Tyson and Vitali Klitschko and having lost only twice?

There is no doubt, however, that Calzaghe, BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2007, is up there, with his unbeaten record perhaps even nudging him ahead of Lewis.

All he has to do now is match Lewis' other feat. Retire and stay retired.

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Boxing legend Joe Calzaghe