The Definition of Insanity: Lacy vs Calzaghe

Lacy was, and continued to be, an absolute nobody. Never had a great win or even a world class win.

 

Stop hating, any American Lacy boxing fans - whether Lacy was good or not, it was still a great acheivment for Joe, who had never stepped up to try and win a recognised title until he was 34. But you know, he managed it at long last, credit to him for eventually managing it.


He managed it much later the rest of the English SMWs who were capable of winning recognised SMW world titles way earlier like groves, froch, chunky, reid, woodhall, benn - but the importance is that finally managed it when a real titlist like lacy came along, in one of joes last fights and after a 15 year wait to win a recognised title.

Dont pretend it didnt happen.

To be fair, Lacy then got stopped by a 40something, so he wasnt much good was he. But worth joe waiting 15 years for.

 

It was a very good win for Calzaghe because Jeff was getting known over here in the US and we thought
he was gonna run over Calzagher (especially after what he did to Robin Reid and Scott Pemberton). It was
a unification and Jeff just got beat pillar to post. Looking back, almost everyone now realizes Jeff was ****
and wasn't even a top 5 win for Calzaghe but at the time we thought what we thought. And that win brought
Calzaghe to America and to HBO and got him Bernard and Roy (even though they were old).

I don't think the importance of his win vs. Jeff should be understated.

 

as today we would rate a WBA titlist over a WBF or WBU one everytime.

true it helped show that wbo was no longer a sham outfit too.

 

Cracking piece matey, memories of bouncing round the living room cheering on Joe.

 

Considering that at the time Americans made out Lacey to be the new Tyson of SMW division and they even had Lacey favourite to wi with their bookies and Media.

 

I remember watching that fight live - I could not believe what I was seeing. Joe gave him an aboslute shellacking for 12 rounds. Non-stop, he beat him up like he stole his money.

 

Makes me laugh how Americans are saying ‘we knew lacy was rubbish’

You lot were calling him the second coming of Mike Tyson at the time!

 

You can't judge Joe's win by assessing the career of Lacy after that loss to conclude he wasn't that good. Maybe he wasn't, but also maybe Calzaghe finished him that night. It's so hard to regroup after a 12 round annihilation. A one-punch 1st round KO you can easily explain away as getting caught cold, but being dismantled entirely for 36 minutes of boxing is a set back almost impossible to recover from. Who knows how good Lacy would have been had he beaten Calzaghe?

Because it's impossible to solve that conundrum, you can only judge that performance in the context of the night of the fight itself, and on that night Joe was exemplary and Lacy almost unbelievably brave...

 

he had nothing to do with mike tyson, there is absolutely no parallel between the two.

 

this really isnt true, he kept fighting and whenever he stepped up a bit too much,lost badly. same pattern as before.

 

This is really isn't... something you can prove....

 

yuh he step up he got beat, simple.

 

That proves nothing. Pointless discussion... your forte not mine...