Why couldn't he win one single round against Calzaghe? If a mid-level guy like Byron Mitchell or Kabery Salem put Joe down, why couldn't Jeff Lacy win ONE round?
A combination of a few things i think. Lacy's style was terrible to fight Calzaghe, Lacy seemed to get intimidated by the occasion and Calzaghe was just absolutely amazing that night. His performance was faultless. If he was to perform like that against Kessler, Kessler would need to produce something special to win.
Lacy was lucky to get by Omar Shieka. He should have lost. His best win was over Robin Reid, who was shot, and serviceable, but fragile Syd Vanderpool. He struggled with mediocre people like Rubin Willaims and Richard Grant. Kessler would have stopped Lacy if they had met. :smoke:smoke:rofl:rofl
Styles make fights.Lacy doesnt have much of a defense and he has literally no jab.He loads up ALOT.So before he even threw 1 punch Joe had already thrown 6 and landed 5.From sheer accumulation he woukd have been discouraged badly.It wouldnt matter at what stage either man would have fought Joe would always lay the beat down on Lacy.Lacy is a fine fighter but stylistically his perfect for Joe.The yanks hyped him up so much and i believe this is what led to his to quick encounter with Joe.If he had at least another 10 fights behind maybe he may had stood a better chance but thats merely subjective.
Everyone involved in Lacy (even Jeff) swallowed the hype. Hell, Calzaghe even swallowed it about his power and used it to prepare like he did. Lacy must have envisioned KO'ing Joe within a few rounds but Lacy forgot to bring his confidence across the Atlantic. The fight was all over after 2 rounds.
BY being THAT over- rated. the answer is in your own question. Unless youre trying to turn this into a ' Calzaghe is just too great ' thread, I dont know what to tell you. Except Lacy didnt throw any jabs to set up the right hand. And once the right hand came down the pike he didnt follow that up with any left hooks...so no right hands to force Joe to his right, which means no patented left hooks from Jeff. Which you can then say he was too green to figure out an effective gameplan. So Jeff is a young , green, over-rated kid... Or Joe is great...whatever...
Because Calzaghe was up for the Lacy fight more than the others. Lacy also seemed to panic and kept going for the big left hook when he would have done better if he was a bit more patient.
Jeff Lacy was a very good fighter and all of those people who swore up and down that Lacy would wreck Joe refused to eat crow and give Calzaghe credit. They just took the easy way out and said Lacy was never any good. Just like they do not give credit to Joe for beating a 32 year old Eubanks but would have given Lacy all the credit in the world for beating a 34 year old Joe C. Joe would not have gotten the excuse that he was at the end of his career everybody would have just said see he was exposed as the "fraud we all claimed he was". Calzaghe TKO between 7 and 9
That was certainly part of it...that and Calzaghe is a better boxer and was well up for it, being in the eyes of many, the underdog. Not sure if the 'freezing' part was due to the whole occasion getting to him or the realisation that he was gonna get his arse kicked.
