The axiom of “win this time, look good next time” may not hold true for Jeff “Left Hook” Lacy. In fact, there might not even be a next time. Lacy showed guts but minimal skill in his razor thin majority decision over Vitali Tsypko at the St. Pete’s Times Forum in Tampa Saturday night, winning in his hometown by scores of 95-95 and 96-94 (twice).
Early this week it was revealed that Lacy had incurred a severe tear of the rotator cuff in his left shoulder during the second round of that bout, a bad location for an injury for a fighter known as “Left Hook.” He will undergo surgery that will keep him out of the ring for six months to a year. So the questions about his future, which already appeared murky at best, are multiplied manifold.
Lacy entered the fight after 272 days of inactivity following his fight with Joe Calzaghe. In that fight Calzaghe surprised most observers by putting the Quentin Tarantino on Lacy for 12 rounds in a shutout, beating Lacy to a pulp, and then beating up on the pulp.
In the turbulent months that followed, Lacy saw a deal for a fight with Antonio Tarver fall through, rejected a fight with Allan Greene, and ultimately dumped his promoter/father figure Gary Shaw. He wound up being scheduled on the Tampa card, co-promoted on paper by his friend Winky Wright’s Winky Promotions along with Golden Boy Promotions, scheduled against that perennial opponent, TBA. Tsypko was penciled in on short notice to be the designated victim. The two had fought a no-decision in 2004 when a clash of heads in round one caused a severe cut to Tsypko’s forehead, causing the fight to be stopped.
Essentially Tsypko was selected not so much to create a competitive matchup as to give Lacy a safe opponent to fight in his hometown in order to breast feed him back to credibility. While Lacy was telling everyone who would listen that it wasn’t really “him” in the ring with Calzaghe, it was obvious to everyone who saw it that, unfortunately it was him, and that it was apparent that he had been overrated, and perhaps even an invention of Shaw’s promotion and some clever matchmaking.
Lacy made statements that he should never have been required to go to Manchester, England, for the Calzaghe fight because he was packing in huge crowds in the U.S. (Lacy also complained about English food, the odd training hours there to prepare on English time to keep his body clock on U.S. time for a competitive advantage, and fighting in the wee small hours of the morning to accommodate American TV. It was sort of Gwyneth Paltrow in reverse.)
Shaw replied in an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal that Lacy had never sold out an event, and in fact, Shaw purchased half of the tickets for Lacy’s fight with Robin Reid in his hometown of Tampa in 2005.
Added to the drama was the story that prior to the Winky Wright -Sam Soliman fight last December, Shaw made the comment that Winky was the best fighter out there between 154 and 175 pounds. Reportedly, although Lacy was not associated with the promotion, he was miffed that the promoter didn’t specify that his comment excluded Lacy at 168.
Then the oldest known source of confrontation between men came into play. Lacy met Jennifer Sepielli and they began dating in 2005. The relationship was becoming more serious and they were engaged a few months later. Reportedly, Shaw questioned why she was always present when he trained, and at every press interview, and Shaw was quoted in the Tampa Tribune as saying that, in England prior to the Calzaghe fight Lacy was preoccupied with where the woman was, saying that Lacy didn’t have his mind on the fight. That might explain Lacy’s previous comment that in the future Shaw should stick to promoting and leave the training to the fighters.
Additional evidence of possible training problems was noted during Lacy’s entrance to the ring Saturday night. HBO’s Jim Lampley said that Lacy left his trainer Dan Birmingham’s training camp in Las Vegas to return to Tampa. Larry Merchant added that Lacy had said that his reason was that Vegas was “boring.”
Drama, intrigue, dissention, along with excuses, retaliatory charges and pillow talk combine for good gossip fodder. But the main question is just what Lacy’s future as a fighter is today? Sadly, because of the injury, he may not have a future. Baseball fans know well the recovery time for a rotator cuff injury, particularly for pitchers. Dr. Richard Goldberger, Lacy’s orthopedic surgeon, described the injury as a sub-scapular rotator cuff tear, according to the Golden Boy press release of the injury. This type of injury is severe, very painful, and major, full open surgery is required.
A fighter with a bum shoulder is doomed to be a bum. Will he be able to throw those wide lefts? Will it have the same effect on the speed of his punches as it does the velocity on a fastball?
Is it fair to analyze his performance, which on the surface was just awful, on Saturday night? Probably not, but let’s review the facts.
I’ve seen Lacy fight a number of times and he always comes into the ring with his sculpted, ripped body, and he was certainly in good shape entering the ring. Is it my imagination, however, or did he appear just a tad softer than we have previously seen? He did seem to be slower, even before the injury, and his facial features seemed to have aged since we last saw him against Calzaghe. Coming out of the Sydney Olympics, he seemed so spirited and youthful that it is difficult to believe that he is now 29, and at a major crossroad in his career.
He showed precious little head movement and would have been an easy target even if he had not been injured. He seemed committed to the right hand from the opening bell against the southpaw, so we can’t evaluate his left before the injury.
Lacy took a lot of punches, his right eye was cut and getting puffy by the fifth round. He appeared to be very tired in the seventh, although how much of that was pain is difficult to determine. He was staggered by a right hook in the eighth just before the bell, and if there was another minute in the round, he probably would have been stopped.
Make no mistake, he fought one gutsy fight, and it was entertaining as well. But the fans at ringside, particularly his fiancé and supporters could see that something was wrong, that he was taking a beating. The crowd was doing more cringing than cheering, and was mighty quiet for a hometown hero. The display was so shocking to the Lacy faithful that when I paused my tape for one clip to take notes, the ringside crowd looked like the audience in the scene of “The Producers” during the performance of “Springtime for Hitler.”
At best, I saw it 96-94 Tsypko, with Vitali winning the last four rounds. Lacy won the first two rounds before the injury. If the fight had been scheduled for 12, Lacy most likely would have been knocked out. Again, is all of this because of the injury, or did the Calzaghe fight unmask Lacy as a pretender?
Tsypko, now 17-2 (10), is already lobbying for a rematch, feeling, perhaps justifiably, that he was the victim of a hometown decision. But he’s in for a long wait and may be well advised to capitalize on his moral victory in the meantime. Lacy will be facing an uphill battle for rehabilitation in 2007, if he can ever return at all.
Lacy, 22-1 (17), has always been a fan favorite. He was an American Olympian with knockout power who fought exciting fights, at least until Calzaghe. He had an engaging smile and a boyish love for his craft. I had dinner with him when I was covering the Robin Reid fight and thought that he was the genuine article, well mannered, polite, and soft spoken, yet with a quick sense of humor and pleasant conversation.
I don’t know what happened to cause so much turmoil in his life. My instincts tell me that he doesn’t deserve it. But the evidence suggests that Lacy was overconfident going into the Calzaghe debacle, possibly taking his eyes off the prize in his preparations, was unnecessarily jealous over his promoter’s attention to a stable mate, and had an exaggerated perception of his box office appeal. He found a relationship that filled one void in his life, while possibly creating others, such as his painful breakup with Shaw. Lacy was a regular in the Shaw household and lived with Shaw’s son, Jared, for a year. He probably needed a long layoff to recover from the beating in Manchester, but even that was extended because of his promotional difficulties and cautious approach to potential opponents.
About this I feel certain. The Calzaghe fight should never been allowed to go 12 rounds. Why should a fighter take that kind of a beating in a lost cause, putting the rest of his career at risk? You could also make a very good case that the fight with Tsypko on Saturday night, too, should have been stopped when it was obvious that Lacy was fighting with a severe disability, and wasn’t even protecting himself well. I realize that is Monday morning quarterbacking, but an injury that severe didn’t improve by going 10 rounds. The man was fighting with one arm. Was it worth it to get a gift decision from the hometown judges? Yes, Lacy is a warrior. No, there is no quit in him. We all admire valor in the ring, but nobody ever wanted to see Jeff Lacy reduced to a human punching bag.
But if the athlete can’t see it himself, his trainer, in this case Dan Birmingham, has to be the voice of reason.