Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Jeff
“Left Hook” Lacy (19-0-1-ND-15 KO’s) defended his IBF Super Middleweight
Title against Rubin “Hollywood” Williams (26-2-15 KO’s), ranked 15th in the
division.
This was a good fight. Williams and Lacy were battling from
start to finish. Williams had some good moments but he failed to make
adjustments, like staying off the ropes, and he fell prey to Lacy’s volume
and power.
The six foot, two inch tall Williams was effective when he
boxed from the outside, where he popped Lacy with his jab, followed by right
hands that gave a good account of himself. At times, he utilized his height
and reach advantage, but not always. He caught Lacy with regularity in many
of the rounds, but he’d always let himself get pressured into the ropes,
where Lacy could steal the rounds Williams might have won. To Lacy’s credit,
he always kept the pressure on and in the end, imposed his will on
Williams.
If you watched this fight on Showtime, chances are you were
being led to think Lacy was amazingly superior to Williams. That was not the
case. Whenever Lacy threw a punch, hit or miss, he was showered with praise
from the master of brown-nosed announcing, Steve Albert (Showtime’s lead
Commentator).
If this were twenty years ago, when fights could be
heard on the radio…and you had to listen to Albert's call the action, you’d
never know what was really going on in the ring. Albert kissed up to Jeff
Lacy ad nauseam. His exaggerated language in describing everything Lacy did
was painful to listen to.
It was a close fight in a lot of the
rounds. There were no knockdowns but midway into the seventh round, Williams
was getting hammered against the ropes and referee Tony Weeks halted the
action after twice asking Williams to fight back. Williams threw two punches
between requests and that was not enough for Weeks, who rendered Lacy the
winner by TKO 7. Williams did not protest the stoppage.
Jeff Lacy did
his job and out punched Williams in most of the rounds. Williams put up a
good fight and was catching Lacy with clean punches but Lacy showed a good
beard. Williams never showed enough killer instinct to follow through when
he did score and paid the price. Not only would he let Lacy off the hook,
but he would always allow himself to be pushed into the ropes, where Lacy
would take over the momentum.
Williams lost the fight because he
consistently let Lacy corner him in the final moments of the rounds. Though
Williams did some decent work on the inside when they were close, the
advantage on the inside belonged to Lacy, who never stopped punching and
always outworked Williams. Williams’ best chance of winning depended on
using his boxing skills and longer reach to his advantage. He didn’t. With
better discipline, he might have won this fight. He showed a lot of heart
and I’m sure his stock went up, despite the loss.
After the fight,
Lacy yelled out, “Joe, I’m coming to get you!” referring to unbeaten WBO
Champion, Joe Calzaghe (38-0-0-30 KO’s), who is scheduled to fight Brian
Magee (23-1-0-16 KO’s) in Belfast Ireland on March 18th. But who knows?
Maybe it was aimed at Joe Hutchison (33-4-2-15 KO’s), who’s journeyed all
the way from Lightweight to Super Middle.
As for Calzaghe, he fought only
twice in 2004 and once in 2003. I have to give Lacy the edge for activity
level alone. Calzaghe is promoted by Frank Warren and has never fought
outside of Europe, rarely outside of the U.K. His handlers do not appear
interested in chasing any big name fighters so much as the typical obscure
variety and always on his turf—thus continuing to frustrate whatever fans
Calzaghe still has. Joe is possibly a better boxer than Lacy, but Lacy has
been more active and building his confidence with each win over his
carefully appointed challengers.
Besides Calzaghe, I’d like to see Lacy
take on a few guys, like up and coming Danny Green, Anthony Mundine or other
Champions like, Mikkel Kessler (WBA), Marcus Beyer (WBC) or WBO Interim
“Champ,” Mario Veit.
Super Middleweight is one of the dullest divisions
in boxing. There are not many names you can roll off as prospective match
ups for Lacy when Calzaghe’s camp declines his challenge. But how good is
Jeff Lacy? Can he beat any of the top guys in the division? Guys like Beyer,
Magee, Veit, Green, Andrade, Kessler and Mundine? We’ll never know if he
does not fight them. Speculation based on hype, will never answer the
question.
I’d particularly like to see Lacy take on Australia’s Anthony
Mundine (23-2-0-18 KO’s), or the guy who last beat Mundine, Manny Siaca
(18-5-0-16 KO’s) of Puerto Rico. Those fights have the potential to be
exciting. A rematch with Vitali Tsypko (13-0) should be considered since
their fight ended in a No Contest after Tsypko suffered a bad cut from a
head butt in the second round that saw that bout stopped in June of last
year. I’d classify that as unfinished business for Lacy.
What Lacy
needs is to be in a fight where nobody already knows who is going to win. So
far, his fights have all suffered from acute predictability. That is more
testimony to the lesser quality of his opponents than his greatness as a
fighter.
Lacy vs. Calzaghe would be an exciting match up. It should
be mandatory that the so-called ‘Champions’ fight each other at least once a
year. I don’t know about you—but I’m sick of Champions NOT fighting each
other. Does the marketing of fighters rely on having four Champions per
division instead of ONE? Having four waters down the term “Champion,” which
by definition means, ‘the holder of first place.’ Last time I checked,
Boxing was an individual sport, not a team sport.
Bernard Hopkins has
won all four of the major Titles at Middleweight and IS the Champion of his
division.
Unless the four SMW Champions face and eliminate each other,
there is no Champion, just four top contenders, each with a piece of the
Title. There can only be one REAL Champion per division in Boxing. It would
only be right if Lacy, Beyer, Calzaghe and Kessler would answer the
question—in the ring—of who the real Champion is.
