Why was Jeff Lacy so overrated?

He was good but very over-hyped. He also had some very good ko's and punching power sells fights.

 

I never understood it at all. I remember seeing so many people thinking he’ll just steamroll Calzaghe. I won some good coin on Calzaghe who was about as underrated as Lacy was overrated.

 

He ruined his shoulder and his entire style depended on it. I don’t think the hype was that out of control before the Clazaghe fight. He was a good action fighter but it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t headed to the top of pfp lists.

Sidenote: Calzaghe was severely underrated at that time due to his crappy opposition and the Lacy fight wouldn’t have happened that early had Lacy’s team known that they were up against a guy capable of beating Hopkins and Kessler.

 

As someone who overrated Lacy really badly, I can give you some direct insight.

Although Lacy's Olympic career didn't end with a medal, my logic, in evaluating his professional prospects, was that a great puncher with an Olympic caliber amateur career would be really dangerous. He was also part of Dan Birhingham's camp, which was at its zenith, also doing well with Winky Wright and Chad Dawson. Dan's confidence in Lacy was so infectious that it was easy to ignore the fact that Lacy looked unimaginative at points in his pretitle career (the Donnell Wiggins win should have been a red flag in retrospect).

To boil it down even simplier, Lacy was overrated because viewers paid more attention to Lacy's outcomes than the fights leading to the outcome:

That is, people focused on the fact that Lacy was the first man to stop iron-chinned Robin Reid, without noticing or caring that Lacy fouled Reid incessantly, or that he probably didn't slip a single right the entire fight, or that Reid was an aging, relatively inactive fighter who was checked out and more invested in his modeling career.

Samething against Syd Vanderpool. Sure, Lacy got his left eye lumped badly and buckled several times from bodyshots, but he finished a guy who went twelve demanding rounds with Bernard Hopkins. And Omar Sheika was a quality opponent. It didn't matter that Sheika sliced his lip open, just that Lacy won the fight. And the Scotty Pemberton win was a violent kayo over a fan favorite who was an iconic figure during that generation because of his frequent Fight of the Year candidates on ESPN. We later found out that he belonged on ESPN talentwise, despite that death-defying spirit. The aforementioned struggle with Donnell Wiggins was an early harbinger of future trouble, as was a tough one against one of my favorite journeymen of that era, Richard 'The Alien' Grant.

 

Another reason people were so bullish on Lacy going into the Calzaghe fight was negative perceptions of Calzaghe. Other have mentioned Joe's weak caliber of opposition. That's definitely true, but it also had something to do with Joe's tendancy to pull out of fights. The perception was that Joe was flaky, that he was scared of Lacy, and that his perpetually damaged hands would spell his downfall.

Joe also suffered from something of a weird geophic guilt by association, since Sven Ottke was still on everyone's mind. Sven was probably among the most hated champions ever by American fans because he was so clearly a lame duck champion who benefited from revoltingly biased officiating. I, like many American fans probably, saw that Joe and Ottke both 1.) had lots of title fights 2.) had lots of decision 3.) only ever fought at home and assumed that Calzaghe and Ottke were both basically the same thing: a lame duck Eurobum.

Clearly that perception was wrong. Although Joe did have crippled hands, he would go on to prove himself a titan of British boxing, while Ottke has thankfully been more or less forgotten.

 

He really wasn't that good to begin with. Horrible defense.

 

two Things come to mind: he was supposed to have been the greatest Puncher on his olympic Team (measured by a punchmeter) ……….even harder than the super Heavyweight on his Team.

second: he looked like a Million bucks due to his physique. he was ripped and looked like a Bodybuilder. the casual fan is fooled by such a look……….while the veterans know that musclebound doesnt mean ****.

 

its more to do with joe being rated sub-world class for the previous 8 years. His unrecognised defences before that were covered with embarrasingly tiny one liners in newspapers outside cardiff, if at all. NO decent tabloid wanted to be laughing stock giving space to what today would be a worthless wbf title. He was no news. But he stepped up fine against Jeff, proved he was world class and won his first title at age 34.

the yang of it is that yeh jeff wasnt much cop, he got beaten up by 40somethings for good sake, while in his prime. He was the one who was closer to sub-world class! Joe was wise to wait for 8 years for such a weakling to come into possession of a recognised title.

 

Complicated question with quite likely a variety of contrasting but legitimate answers.

First power punchers always get rated highly and ko’s Excite and draw fans. This is why we get as many Shavers threads as we do of actual greats.

He was chiseled and looked the part and dropped guys...I think he was the first to drop Reid and did so four times. So it was not far fetched to think he would steamroll Calzaghe or Kessler and set his sights on Tarver like many expected.

Another is the US factor. The SMW’s were controlled by 2 European champs so a lot of US media was pushing the hype for what some/many perceived as less than threatening level euro comp....and many of us bought in.

Looking back at a few different forum threads Lacy was an overwhelming favorite based upon the responses although Joe certainly had his backers. But even among some of them thier were concerns that Joe was slowing down, and after having been dropped in his previous fights might not be able to withstand the expected ferocity of the younger and stronger Lacy. Common picks were Joe keeps it competitive for the first half with Lacy taking over and stopping him between 6-10.

Some thought Joes southpaw style would be a huge challenge while others thought it would be a non issue having trained with Winky.

Funny some of these forums were picking Lacy to destroy Calzaghe and follow it up with Kessler or Tito before trying to tackle Hops or Tarver in a big money fight.

But largely the promise of Ko’s was probably the biggest factor. Chiseled, menacing and knocking dudes out...

Maybe we should have seen the way Sheika troubled him, and in hindsight there are signs...but I don’t think very many people were pointing that out (and only saw 1 person mention it in 6 separate threads).

In reality maybe he was not so much overhyped as Joe was underhyped? Maybe he was on the way up but got decimated by a true ATG? Maybe he could have lived up to the hype had he faced Pavlivk, Kessler, Taylor and possibly looked for Hops and Tarver 2-3 years down the road.

I do think the beating Joe laid down stopped whatever chance Lacy may (or may not) have had at living up to his hype? Maybe we will never know...but we do know he ran into a polished underrated (at the time) great...who IMO not only destroyed him in the ring but destroyed his potential as well.

 

I remember a few newspapers comparing him and Calzaghe's results against common opposition, and it looked fairly convincing.

It was easy for somebody who had not troubled them self with the detail to buy into the hype.

As for Calzaghe, his opposition did not look too stellar, he kept pulling out of big fights, and we knew that he had problems with his hands, and there was talk of him having problems making weight.

It was easy to believe that Calzaghe was beatable.

 

Easy to be a revisionist today and think Lacy was a hype job...he was an overwhelming favorite both in the US and Britain as well as most notable boxing sites/mags.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ba...p/2008/11/10/658250/the-story-of-joe-and-jeff


Interesting to see who some pros were picking

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/lacy-vs-calzaghe-pundits-picks.584162/page-2

More predictions

http://tss.ib.tv/articles-of-2006/3430-lacy-calzaghe-fight-predictions

 

I do find it interesting that leading into Calzaghe vs Lacy I really only saw a couple of people mentione Lacy’s struggles with Sheika as a warning heading up to that night...and following the beat down there were numerous people who recognized it...

It always amazes me how so many boxing fans become revisionist prophets after the fact

 

It wasn't just easy to believe; it was conventional wisdom.