Calzaghe has October showdown

Joe Calzaghe has booked an October fight night

WBO super-middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe has booked an autumn date for his next title defence.

He will put his crown on the line against American Antwun Echols at Cardiff's National Ice Rink on October 13.

Echols twice took Bernard Hopkins to the limit in IBF middleweight challenges.

Originally envisaged as the main attraction on an outdoor show at Cardiff Castle in July, the bout was postponed until the autumn after Calzaghe claimed that illness had interfered with his preparation.

October 6 was the date settled upon, but it has now been put back a further week to fit in with US cable channel Showtime.

The fight had been due to follow the Wales-Belarus World Cup qualifier at the Millennium Stadium in the afternoon, but it will now compete for attention with the Six Nations rugby clash between Wales and Ireland.

Echols, who calls himself 'Kid Dyn-o-Mite', comes from the industrial city of Davenport, Iowa, which also produced former middleweight ace Michael Nunn.

At 29, he has won 25 and drawn one of his 30 fights, with the two defeats by the exceptional Hopkins the only losses he has suffered in the past five years.

Calzaghe, four months younger, has won all 31 contests, stopping 26 of his foes.

This will be his ninth defence of the crown he won by outpointing Chris Eubank in Sheffield in October 1997.

Stablemates Bradley Pryce and Gavin Rees, who each won WBO Inter-Continental belts on the undercard of the April bill in which Calzaghe demolished mandatory challenger Mario Veit inside a round, will put those titles on the line for the first time.

A full house of almost 5,000 packed Cardiff International Arena for the Veit showdown, but that venue is not available in October and Calzaghe will return to the smaller Ice Rink, where he last fought against Paraguayan Juan Carlos Gimenez in April 1998.