was jeff lacy overhyped or just outclassed?

Only the Americans saw him as the next "Mike Tyson". One of the lamest comparisons i heard in a long time. Lacy was a competent fighter with a good attitude and a nice look about him physically but thats where it ended.
The jury was out when he struggled with a bunch of C and B rate fighters in Sheika and co. He was put in way to early with Joe and i knew he was on a hiding to nothing. I expected the fight to be somewhat competitive but not anything like how it materialised. Jeff was sooo woefully out of depth it was tragic. It was akin to watching an old boxer go through the motions and simply get beaten up. Why his corner never stopped it il never know.
Jeff has the boxing brain of fruitfly. His ring intelligience is farcical.

 

this....jeff actually wasn't a bad boxer...he used to showcase on his earliest fights but he fell in love with his power just like razor ruddock and that was the beginning of the end..calzaghe hitting him with 1000 punches and the near career ending shoulder injury finished him

 

thing is , he was made for Calzaghe too , If they had gone another route he might have had time to mature and grow into a more rounded fighter , but the completeness of the pasting coupled with the surgery ended his career.

 

And the bigges piece of overhypness was had Lacy beaten Calzaghe he would have been in the top 5 p4p atsch

 

And 31 out of 32 American boxing writers predicted a Lacy win.

Lacy was a very good fighter before Calzaghe ruined him. Just look at the videos of some of his pre-Calzaghe fights. He looked very impressive and destructive

 

both....

 

Bit harsh on the options want to pick something like special performance by joe but against overhyped opponent.

Overhyped in the sense he actually wasnt that good. the only fight he looked decent in was against pemberton at that point think he was old aussie dude.didnt look great against reid and didnt look anything aginst sheika.

Everyone was on joes back at that point loads of british guys wrote calzaghe off. Absolutetly loads of them. guys i work with said that Lacy guys going to destroy Joe. I remember asking them had they even seen him fight at that point!!!

Everyone wrote Joe off because people were sceptical of him and warrens handling of his career at that point. he had injury problems and into his thirties added with inactivity everyone thought he was going to get murdered by some guy who hasnt exactly looked like the next roy jones.
Says a lot when the people in the uk thought this guy they have little recollection of will utterly destroys Joes padded record.What actually happened was a different matter altogether

 

overrated and outclassed

 

Consider this about Lacy. On his win resume he has beaten

Vanderpool a world class fighter
Sheika went on to challenge for a world title again
Manfredo was in the Ring top 10 in his previous fight
Pemberton had a win over Sheika, was a puncher on a 5 fight 4 KO winning run
Tsypko good world class fighter who won the European title
Reid had only 2 fights previous beaten undefeated B Magee the now European champ.

Now Im not saying there are any greats on Lacys record, but its arguably better than L Butes, whos raved about by some now

Lacy was picked to beat undefeated long running SMW champ Calzaghe and would have been picked over Kessler or any other SMW at that time.

I think Lacy was outclassed. Calzaghe ruined him. Stole his confidence and shattered his punch resistance.
If Lacy hadnt of fought Calzaghe, then he could have had a better career. I would have picked Lacy at that time, to beat 3 time WBC champ Beyer, though in hindsight now, dont know how that fight would have gone (probably Beyer, a very underated fighter), and could have blasted through lower world class fighters like Lucas, Siaca etc, where he would have been raved about

 

He struggled against guys that were nothing special leading up to the Calzaghe fight.

And then badly struggled against guys who were also nothing special.

I say hyped.

 

I just like how people use the argument that lacy was the favorite as if that makes him good. He was the favorite because he was grossly overrated , just look at his body of work after the loss, even before the loss ... He was never good , simply a media hyped machine .

Good performance for Calzaghe , in terms of legacy ? He schooled a C+ level fighter

 

Read below

:deal

 

i would love to read threads on esb prior to the calzaghe v lacy fight just to see how many people on here said lacy would win.

 

Lacy was definitely overrated. He was a 21 fight novice and his best win was who...an old Syd Vanderpool?

 

He surely was overhyped. That's just a fact and I'm a fan of his, people compared him to Tyson and so on, it was ridiculous. Lacy was obviously one dimensional with poor defense but very good power and decent speed, Calzaghe's style easily countered that. The reason why Lacy seemed too overhyped is because Calzaghe had over 15lol title defenses yet no one knew who he is, that Lacy fight was his introduction to the world, believe it or not. So Lacy being overhyped was a blessing for him.