Reading through that "worst schooling ever" thread it got me thinking about the Calzaghe v Lacy fight. Did Lacy's corner ever give an explanation for not throwing in the towel? Every time I see that fight I can't believe that they didn't pull him out after 7 or 8 rounds when it was clear he wasn't going to win and was just getting battered in there. Did Lacy's corner contribute to ruining him? Would things have turned out different if they pulled him out without suffering even more and going back to the drawing board without being mentally ****ed from that night?
In round 9 it should have been stopped by the ref as i remember. That his corner didn't pull him out is terrible but that the ref didn't is horrendous. He let him get mercilessly beaten for 36 minutes. He finally showed some compassion in round 12 when he bought jeff some time with his glove tape. You have to wonder what he would have been like had it gone down as a mid-round tko as it should have. Lacy may have been lacking in skills but he had a ton of heart.
Birmingham was quoted as saying he wanted to stop the fight after Round 9 but Gary Shaw told him no. If you remember or have the fight Shaw can be seen walking to the Lacy corner after just about every round of the fight. What he was doing there nobody knows he is a promoter not a trainer. I know Calzaghe is not a big puncher but Lacy took way too many punches in that fight the right thing to do would have been to stop it around round 9 or so I would have had no problem with that.
His corner had probably bought into the 'Lacy can finish this at any point with one punch' So they let him carry on trying to land that one punch.
If the truth be told, Lacy like Miranda was just a beatdown waiting to happen. These dumb**** punchers fall in love with their firepower and don't bother to learn how to box. Doesn't really matter what anybody says to them. They are just gonna do what they are gonna do. Maybe Lacy should fight Miranda to claim the biggest Dumb**** of the Year Award.
I don't really see how pulling him out 3 rounds early would have saved him mentally, he had been schooled comprehensively already and putting a stoppage on his record might have been even harder for him to deal with. If anything, the hype before that fight probably damaged him in the end. It must have been a big drop, and shock, to go from being thought of as so highly to being completely humbled.
Froch ended it with 14 second to go, Lacy might have too. Just because he is getting a boxing lesson is no reason to stop a fight.
worst post of the week Lacy was getting massacred. That wasnt just a boxing lesson and nothing like your example. Froch was in the fight at all times, hurting JT a number of times before the end. Lacy couldnt even hit Calzaghe.
I don't know what you mean, I said I didn't see the point in stopping it - though Froch-Taylor was a completely different fight.
There'll never be another Tyson and the hype was bordering on the absurd, but Lacy was still a world class operator going into it. That kind of loss, and the shoulder injury he suffered vs Tsypko (which essentially neutered Lacy's namesake punch for the rest of his career and made him a one arm fighter) really cut short a career that, while it never would've been ATG or HOF level, would've had more staying power than it did without them.
Lacy was ruined cause he tore his rotator cuff and needed surgery on his left shoulder in his very next fight. Its easy to think that Calzaghe ruined Lacy, but surgery is a bigger ***** than any defeat.