Jeff Lacy Faces Vitali Tsypko On Saturday Night

Jeff Lacy (21-1, 17 KO’s) makes his comeback fight on Saturday night, December 2nd, against Vitali Tsypko (17-1, 10 KO’s) at the St. Pete Times Forum, in Tampa, Florida. Lacy, the one time IBF Super Middleweight champion, has a lot of questions that need to be answered about whether or not he still has it, after sustaining a methodical 12-round beating by Joe Calzaghe, in his has last bout on March 4th, 2006, in Manchester, England. The fight wasn’t close after the first round, and probably should have been stopped by the 6th round, when it became clear that Lacy wasn’t mentally into the fight.

From outward appearances, it seems like Lacy gave up after the 1st round, when he got hit with a blizzard of punches by Calzaghe. However, for the most part, Lacy didn’t look to bad in that round, even landing a couple of big shots. Nevertheless, after this round, it was all Calzaghe, with Lacy mostly slowly following him around the ring, and getting hit with fast flurries thrown by Cazaghe.

Before his bout with Calzaghe, however, Lacy looked unbeatable, having an unbeaten record of 21-0, with 17 knockouts. Throughout this time, there was no fighter that even came close to fighting competitive with Lacy, which probably was a bad thing, since it likely gave him a false sense of invincibility. Part of the problem, though, stems from the poor match-ups that Lacy had been pitted against.

Instead of fighting tough opponents, like Sakio Bika, whom I think could actually beat Lacy, he chose to fight boxers that he could easily mow down, which he did very well, mind you. Like any fighter that becomes accustomed to easy opposition, when they finally fight someone that punches back, they’re often shocked and confused, seemingly not ready for experience. Sadly, with Lacy, that was the case against Calzaghe. Is it too late to rebuild him?

No, but it’s up to him, if has the mental toughness to understand why he lost, and make corrections, then I can see him putting this behind him and learning from it. However, it’s always tough for a boxer to recover from a loss as the one he experienced, and often, they’re not up to it, perhaps seeing themselves as a loser. As they say, if you believe something about yourself, especially negative things, it’s often difficult to disprove them. For Lacy’s sake, let’s hope he can overcome his loss.

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Posted November 29th, 2006 l 100 Views

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