I AM extremely excited by some of the boxing coming up in the UK, starting this weekend and watching it will cap off what has been an excellent couple of weeks for me.

Apologies for the lack of a column last week but I was in New York, attending a dinner for the UK Sparks, which is a charity for sick children.

It was an exciting night to be involved with and I was proud to represent Wales at a ‘Sporting Legends’ dinner that also saw Steve Collins (Ireland), Geoff Hurst (England) and Sky Sports’ Andy Gray (Scotland) helping out as well.

Being retired gives me far more time for charity work and I had a brilliant time, I really do love New York.

The family and myself also had a thrill this week as we headed to Swansea University where I received an honorary fellowship from the School of Human Sciences for services to sport and to charity I believe.

I had the gown, the cap, the full nine yards and it was good fun, I guess that’s another achievement and one that I am very proud of!

Now that I am back in the UK and with the time ticking towards the next Calzaghe Promotions show at the Newport Centre on Friday, August 21, we are extremely close to making a major announcement about the venture.

As the Argus revealed last week, we do have new backers and a press conference is on the agenda, only delayed because one of the new backers has been away on honeymoon.

We are determined to make Calzaghe Promotions a big success, we want to be the future of promoting and it’s a big thrill to be returning to Newport, a place where I have great memories from throughout my career.

My third ever fight as a professional back in 1993 was at the Newport Centre, I stopped Spencer Alton in two rounds and hopefully some of the fans who were at that fight will be able to come and support the current crop of Welsh fighters.

We are hoping to expand the stable we have fighting under Calzaghe Promotions, but for this show the focus will be firmly on the Team Calzaghe gym members, Gavin Rees, Bradley Pryce, Tony Doherty and Hari Miles.

I have been down at the gym this week to help dad with the training and I am really impressed with what I am seeing, particularly from Gavin and Bradley.

They’ve been unfortunate in the past two years with circumstances not in their favour and politics hurting their prospects, but they are so determined to get back at the world class level they belong.

They’ve started working with a dietician which is something I’ve wanted them to do for years and dad and I are determined to get them back to where they belong.

August 21 is a night I am very much looking forward too, but I also can’t wait to see how things unfold tomorrow night on the Manchester bill headlined by Amir Khan’s world title fight.

It looks like a good card to me with the Olympians on there as well, not to mention Enzo Maccarinelli.

The Khan fight is a really tough one to call, even though on paper, he is the better fighter.

I still believe that had he been at his best, Gavin Rees could’ve beaten Andreas Kotelnik (who stopped Gavin the 12th round to win the title, Gavin’s first defeat and last fight) because Kotelnik is distinctly one-paced.

Khan is far quicker, has better movement and in terms of movement and pace, he is in a league above Kotelnik. However, as we saw against Gavin, the Ukrainian can take a bang and I don’t think Amir has the power to stop him.

He’ll be looking to outbox Kotelnik and to win the fight on points.

And in theory I believe he can do just that and bring a world title back to Britain which would be fantastic.

However, we all know that Khan’s weakness is his chin and hopefully that won’t be exposed.

He is extremely ‘chinny’ we all know that and he will have to be wary because Kotelnik might be a little sluggish, but he does have power.

Enzo has a tough fight against big punching Russian Denis Lebedev.

Lebedev is undefeated and it’s a big test for Enzo after his shock loss last time out.

He’s said he’ll probably quit boxing if he loses, but hopefully that won’t happen and Enzo can get back towards his best form.

He is fighting a guy who shares the same promoter as Enzo, so whatever happens the promoter will win!

Finally, I really want to say how gutted I was to hear about the tragic death of one of my favourite fighters, Arturo Gatti, who died aged just 37.

The guy was just a month younger than I am and his was a career I always enjoyed watching, he wasn’t the most talented, but he must surely rank of one of the most courageous and brave fighters of all time.

He was in some absolutely amazing fights (winning Ring Magazines fight of the year award on four different occasions) and I was really upset to hear he had died and the shocking circumstances of his death.

There have been far too many boxing tragedies recently and Arturo is a real loss to the sport.