WBO world super-middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe has vowed to again destroy German challenger Mario Veit when they meet in Hamburg on May 7.

The Gwent southpaw, the longest reigning world champion, is determined on another quick win after Veit's management caused tonight's scheduled record 16th defence against Belfast's Brian Magee to be postponed.

They objected because it was within 60 days of the Veit fight, for which they are paying $1,750,000, which is against World Boxing Organisation rules, and the WBO upheld their objection.

As a result Calzaghe (and Magee) miss out on a lucrative pay-day and have wasted weeks of training, making a frustrated Calzaghe very angry.

"The Germans have messed me around and as a result I am determined to go over there and destroy Veit," said the 32-year-old.

"I will take a week off so that I don't go stale after preparing so hard for the Magee fight and I will go to Germany in the best shape of my life and knock Veit out again (he KO'd him in the first round in Cardiff in April 2001).

"If the Germans want to pay me for the privilege of knocking their fighter out again, that's up to them."

Asked if he felt sympathy for Magee, who had missed a chance of winning the world title, he said: "Any sympathy I feel is for me. Magee had no chance of winning the title anyway. I would have knocked him out."

The pair could have gone ahead with their fight on a non-title basis, but neither camp nor the promoter wanted that.

Calzaghe's promoter Frank Warren thought he he had secured tonight's title fight after negotiations with Veit's promoter Klaus-Peter Kohl of Universum.

He believed the Veit fight was to be rescheduled for June, meaning the 60-day limit between bouts would not apply.

He explained: "Late on Wednesday night I got a fax from Veit's promoters saying ZDF, the German broadcasters, were refusing Joe to fight because they had no other date than May 7 for the fight.

"I'm annoyed because supporters were expecting a great fight and Joe had trained very hard and for once there were no injuries.

"I've got my doubts the Veit fight will even take place on May 7 because I don't know how they can make it work financially.

"They have no British TV."

He added: "In the short term, the Magee fight being off is not good for Joe. He needed to get back in the ring and I thought he would have beat Magee and it would have been what he needed."

Universum denied responsibility for the fight being cancelled.

"We won the purse bid and they knew they could not stage a title fight within sixty days but they still decided to go on and promote the Magee bout as a title fight. Now they have had to call it off," said a spokesman.

The postponement is another setback for Calzaghe who is still hoping to make 2005 a defining year in his career and who hopes, after Veit, to meet either new IBF light-heavyweight champion Clinton Woods or world number one Glen Johnson in the Autumn.