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Enzo Maccarinelli sat on the ring apron after sparring super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe for eight rounds and recalled his first day in training camp for his cruiserweight title fight against David Haye.

"It was my first day back in the gym after my last fight [a fourth-round stoppage of New Zealand-based Algerian Mohamed Azzaoui in November 2007] and Enzo [Calzaghe] made me do 15 rounds on the pads. I threw up three times," he revealed. "I threw up the first time and he said to me, 'Get back in the ring.' The second time he said, 'Come on, get back in here,' and it was the same the third time. I had nothing left but that's the way he pushes you; that's the quality he has."

Maccarinelli's own quality has improved significantly under Calzaghe's no-nonsense regimen. Mechanical and predictable through much of his first six years as a professional after an amateur career in which he won several domestic titles, the 27-year-old from Swansea has developed into a more fluid and accomplished boxer since Calzaghe began to work with him in 2006.

In their first fight together, Maccarinelli stopped former titleholder Marcelo Dominguez from Argentina in the ninth round before crushing fellow Briton Mark Hobson in the first round.

Hobson had previously given Maccarinelli all he could handle in a compelling 12-round brawl. For the first bout, Maccarinelli did most of his training on his own, keeping one eye on the stopwatch by his feet when he punched the bags and shadowboxed.

Calzaghe's influence has increased Maccarinelli's self-confidence. His much-enhanced jab and right hand now complement the left hook, which was once his weapon of choice.

In July '07, he came through the toughest examination of his career against Wayne Braithwaite, a diminished ex-titleholder perhaps, but at 31, no spent force. Maccarinelli survived the best punches that the Brooklyn-based Guyanese fighter could deliver and commanded the action by utilizing his physical strength and a commendable range of heavy artillery, from formidable right uppercuts to powerful left hooks to the body.

His personality is understated but warm. Like his charismatic trainer, Maccarinelli's father hails from Italy and he boxed in the Italian army before settling in south Wales.

Enzo's father, Mario, was his first trainer, but his most valuable early experience came from the third-round knockout defeat he suffered against English journeyman Lee Swaby in May 2000. Maccarinelli was only 19.

"That was the turning point in my career because I lost to a boy who shouldn't have beaten me. I just blew up after two rounds," he declared. "I was drinking and doing things that fighters shouldn't be doing, so I said to myself that I wasn't going to be another boy who could have made it -- but didn't -- because he messed up."

Several nights earlier, Maccarinelli had been out on the town and living it up, for his mind at the time was full of extravagant notions.

On one particular night he got into an altercation with a nightclub doorman and knocked him out, an incident that he is far less proud of now than he was then.

"I didn't go around beating up bouncers but it just so happened that I had a fight with a doorman on a night out in Swansea. He came off the worse [than I did]," Maccarinelli said ruefully. "To my mind, I was performing."

He realized his mistake and rededicated himself to his sport.

Confidence will be the key for Maccarinelli, in addition to maintaining a tight defense and overcoming his tendency to lift up his chin as he steps out of the fray.

In 21 fights, Haye has stopped 19 opponents, accumulating a 90 percent knockout rate, but Maccarinelli is a puncher, too, stopping 21 of his 29 opponents for a 75 percent knockout rate.

"I like the fact that Maccarinelli's got punch power because David Haye hasn't convinced me yet," said Steve Collins, the former middleweight and super middleweight titleholder from Ireland. "I don't think he's good enough to withstand what Maccarinelli is capable of producing."

And while Haye is capable of generating prodigious power himself, Richie Giachetti, who worked with Jean-Marc Mormeck for the Haye fight, was dismissive of the Frenchman's fitness and ambivalent about the 27-year-old Londoner's performance last November.

"Jean brought in a conditioning coach who didn't know what he was doing … Jean had nothing in the tank," Giachetti suggested. "That's why he couldn't do anything when he knocked Haye down in the fourth round. The guy didn't beat him, Jean beat himself."

Haye's performance did not convince Joe Calzaghe either.

"He's a top guy but he's not the top guy he thinks he is," Calzaghe insisted. "Haye absorbs more in a round than he dishes out. In his last European title fight [a ninth-round stoppage of Italy's Giacobbe Fragomeni in November 2006] [Fragomeni] wasn't a banger but he caught him about 20,000 times on the chin. The way Enzo punches, with his power and intensity, it's going to be very uncomfortable for Haye. How will he keep this tank back throwing just 15 shots a round?"

Haye was late for the final head-to-head news conference on Thursday, having refused to interrupt his sleep pattern for the 12:30 p.m. start. The first bell is scheduled to be rung at 2:30 a.m. GMT on Sunday at London's O2 Arena.

"If it's sleep he wants, I may be able to help him," Maccarinelli quipped in Haye's absence.

It should be explosive.

Brian Doogan covers boxing for The Sunday Times and Ring magazine.