Hampered by a fragile left hand and frustrated by boxing politics, Joe Calzaghe believes he is only two fights away from unifying the super-middleweight titles.

The unbeaten Welshman (41-0) defends his IBF and WBO belts against Australia-based Sakio Bika of Cameroon on Saturday at Manchester's MEN Arena. Boxing's longest reigning world champion, Calzaghe will be going for his 18th successful world title defence.

The hand injury and lack of a suitable opponent have kept the 34-year-old Calzaghe out of the ring since his lopsided decision over IBF champion Jeff Lacy in March. He can now see a route to holding all the titles.

Although Calzaghe says he will be concentrating on Bika, he will have an interest in Saturday's other super-middleweight fight in Copenhagen, where Denmark's unbeaten WBA champion Mikkel Kessler faces Germany's WBC champion Markus Beyer.

``I want to fight until I cannot fight any more,'' said Calzaghe, who has defended the WBO title for nine years but has never beaten a truly big name such as Roy Jones Jr. ``But it is a rare breed of fighter who actually gets out on top.

``I think that is a realistic goal for me. I would like to fight another four or five fights but not beyond the age of 36.''

A powerful left-hander who fought virtually the perfect fight to take the IBF crown from Lacy, Calzaghe has been chasing the likes of Jones and Bernard Hopkins since he took the WBO crown from Chris Eubank nine years ago.

``I would love to go over (to the United States) and fight,'' he said. ``But these guys are avoiding me because Hopkins retired and Roy Jones got himself beat. But it would great to have at least one fight in America.''

Before that, he must take care of Bika, who has lost one of his 23 fights, a majority decision to Australia's Sam Soliman four years ago. He fought Beyer in May but the fight was declared a technical draw after four rounds when the German sustained a bad cut.

Bika's trainer, Angelo Hyder, said Calzaghe's punching power was overrated.

``Joe is a non-puncher,'' he said. ``He hit Jeff Lacy 5,000 times in his last fight in March and could not knock him out.''

© The Canadian Press, 2007