Source:REUTERS/Jason Cairnduff
[Saba Sports News] Recently, Manchester United legend Wayne Rooney, along with guest Paul Stretford and former world boxing champion Tony Bellew, recalled a drunken incident at Stretford’s wedding on Rooney’s show, “The Wayne Rooney Show.” Stretford revealed that, as he was also managing British boxing champion Joe Calzaghe at the time, Calzaghe was present at the wedding. After a few drinks, Rooney directly challenged Calzaghe right in front of Stretford. Stretford recalled: “Rooney went over and said: ‘Hey, Joe.’ ‘Hey, Rooney?’ ‘I can take you.’ I looked at him and thought: ‘You’re joking.’ …So we went outside, onto the lawn, in the middle of my wedding… Joe was saying: ‘Don’t worry, it’s fine.’ …First thing… Rooney went for it, hit him in the ribs.” Rooney himself added with a laugh that he thought Calzaghe seemed a bit vulnerable and had had a few drinks, so maybe he could hand him his first loss. Commenting as a professional boxer, Bellew noted that Calzaghe usually wouldn’t react to such provocations, but expressed amazement that Rooney dared to challenge Britain’s greatest boxer. Rooney has a boxing background, having trained in the sport until he was 16, but was also once knocked out in a kitchen ‘friendly’ by former teammate Phil Bardsley while drunk. Stretford concluded: “But that’s Rooney, isn’t it?” Bellew laughingly called Rooney “one of the biggest kids” he’d ever seen, who gets “more lively” after a drink.