ENZO CALZAGHE has hit back at a veiled attack on his world champion son, Joe, (pictured) by Prince Naseem Hamed.

Hamed claimed that Gwent's WBO super-middleweight king should not 'call out names like (Bernard) Hopkins and Roy Jones as future opponents because 'they are in a different class'.

And although the former world featherweight champion tries to play down his attack, saying 'I'm not downgrading him in any way', Hamed does not think Calzaghe has fought 'legends'.

He said: "Joe's done a fantastic job against the people he's fought up to now but I don't think many of them have been up to much, apart from Omar Sheika."

The Newbridge star's father and trainer, though, punched back: "I don't want to get into a slanging match but he's trying to say that Joe isn't in the same league as Roy Jones and, in saying that, he's making himself more of a laughing stock.

"He's talking a load of rubbish. He needs to learn off Joe what a true champion must do and that is, if it doesn't happen in the ring with a knockout situation, which seems to be his Plan A, he has to try other things which is what Joe does.

"Why has he said this? Is it because Joe has taken his crown as the best boxer in Britain? "He says that thing about Omar Sheika, but he is in the same stable as Nas and they are friends.

"Joe has now fought Sheika and Charles Brewer and Brewer is in a different class to Sheika. It is just sour grapes on Nas' part."

Enzo also reckons that undisputed world middleweight champion Hopkins is running scared of 30-year-old Calzaghe because a match with the Newbridge star could end the American's career.

Calzaghe Snr added: "Hopkins has become one of the best pound-for-pound fighters around but I would be surprised if he took the fight because he knows Joe would knock him out.

"He's 37 and can have another four fights and earn £2 million if he wants to but, if he took on Joe, it would be the last million pounds he earns in boxing.

"Bernard Hopkins is a realistic fighter who knows that there's no way he could beat Joe." Enzo, with tongue firmly in cheek, had one last swipe at Hamed, by adding: "Joe should learn to go down four times on the floor and then he might get these big fights!"