Hopkins will play dirty, fears Enzo Calzaghe

"Forget Joe's angel face; he's a dirty fighter, too, and so if I was to put him in the same mode as Hopkins and play dirty, you wouldn't have a fight at all.

"But Joe has come here to fight when he didn't have to. So, please Bernard, I'm asking you 'make it a true, honest fight'. Otherwise you'll be the biggest bum in history in my eyes."

Wow. Dad's getting a bit excitable on fight eve, evidently stung into the rant by Hopkins's tasteless personal barbs that Enzo's ego as a trainer was such that he'd rather see his son "carried out of the ring than quit". If this was evidence of how effective Hopkins's insidious mind games can be, then it's a good job Joe remains a little more phlegmatic than his splendid old man.

If, though, it was just Enzo's desperate counter-bid to cajole Hopkins out of his familiar backpedalling, roughhouse shell, it was a hopeless cause.

For even as he was pleading for the Philadelphian to "make it a true, honest contest", giant screens behind him were showing footage of Winky Wright's head being jolted back by a blatant butt when Hopkins reverted to plan N in his last fight nine months ago.

At 43, the self-styled "old fox" isn't about to change now.

Those screens didn't show many other explosive highlights, because there rarely are with an 'Executioner' who actually prefers suffocation as his modus operandi. It's why, for all of his unarguable pedigree, he's so often been box office poison here and why even the influx of 9,000 Welsh fans - 9,003 if you add Catherine, Zeta and Jones, smiles Frank Warren - can't guarantee a 19,000 sell-out.

Yet just the odd clip of Hopkins weaving inside the guard of the accomplished Antonio Tarver and connecting precisely from odd angles with that sniper right hand is enough to remind the Calzaghe camp, amid all their cries of foul, the real reason why the man standing in the way of Joe's 23rd successful world title bout win has prevailed in 22 of his own. It's because his ringcraft is as notable as his darker arts.

Naturally, Calzaghe starts an overwhelming fancy. He has seven years head start over a veteran who, despite wins over Wright and Antonio Tarver in the past two years, hasn't dispelled the notion provided by his two previous defeats by the one-paced Jermain Taylor that he's in irreversible decline.

The Welshman, in contrast, gave absolutely no evidence in his dismantling of Mikkel Kessler last November that his powers are waning, even at 36.

If anything, he's just appeared to grow in stature with even the Vegas bookies, usually unimpressed by Brit invaders, persuaded he'll simply overwhelm Hopkins with the sheer speed and volume of his punches.

Even the move up to 12st 7lb from his super- middleweight kingdom to challenge for Hopkins's Ring Magazine world title offers no concerns.

Calzaghe swears he's never felt so comfortable now he's found his "natural weight division", insists the switch to light-heavy hasn't curbed his speed.

So why does the feeling gnaw away here that Hopkins still has a serious shout? Partly, it is down to B-Hop's constant convincing reminders that his fight resumé, featuring opponents like Oscar De La Hoya and Felix Trinidad, is of a superior order to Calzaghe's. Partly, it's also about the astonishing shape he looks in for his age.

Mostly, though, it's the feeling that, somehow, Hopkins's underdog role - "I was born an underdog, man - don't you know by now I love that?" - has helped him transfer pressure on to Calzaghe's shoulders by playing up the nonsense that the Welshman's legacy will somehow be fatally devalued if he's beaten on his first outing in boxing's mecca.

Nothing irritates Calzaghe more. The biggest grimace he offered all week was when Richard Schaefer, chief of Hopkins's Golden Boy co-promoters, billed this as a tussle between "a legend and a man who wants to become a legend". What a nerve; no defeats in 18 years, maybe the best 12st fighter in history, perhaps his nation's greatest ever sportsman but, to America, he's still just a wannabe.

"Oh, I'll show them," the wannabe just smiled. "I didn't need to come to Vegas because my legacy's already cemented, but I'm a champion with a champion's heart. For me this is just the icing on the cake."

And come Sunday morning, it is going to taste so sweet.