Jeff Lacy vs. Epifanio Mendoza Tonight

By Boxing News - 07/23/2008 - Comments

lacy67765.jpgBy Aaron Klein: Super middleweight Jeff Lacy (23-1, 17 KOs) returns to the ring tonight after a seven month layoff to face the powerful but slow Epifanio Mendoza (28-5, 24 KOs) in a scheduled 10-round bout at the Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, in Cabazon, California. Lacy, 31, is still trying to get his once promising boxing career back on track after experiencing a humiliating 12-round unanimous decision loss to undefeated super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe in March 2006.

The loss, a brutally one-sided affair, seemed to take a lot out of Lacy, who was pounded unceasingly in every round of the fight. In all honesty, the fight probably should have been stopped by the 7th round when it had become apparent to most, if not all ringside boxing observers, that Lacy was far too slow and mechanical to catch up to the speedy more experienced Calzaghe and had no chance of knocking him out.

After the defeat, Lacy would later on experience a full tear of his left rotator cuff in his next fight nine months later against Vitali Tsypko in December 2006. Though Lacy injured his left shoulder early in the fight in the 2nd round, he would continue to fight with the badly injured shoulder for the next eight rounds and ultimately win a 10-round majority decision. As it turned out, the outcome was controversial, with few boxing fans and writers alike feeling that Lacy had not done enough to beat the little known Tsypko.

The injury, later requiring immediate surgery to repair, subsequently kept Lacy out of boxing for the next 12 months until he came back in December 2007, looking like a shell of his former self in the process of defeating former star of The Contender reality television series Peter Manfredo Jr. by a 10-round unanimous decision. While Lacy got the win, he looked very average, showing little power with his once devastating left hook and looking very tight and rigid as he moved around the ring sluggishly.

The fight was there for the taking for Manfredo Jr., who did well in the early rounds of the fight hurting Lacy on one occasion, but in the later rounds, Manfredo suddenly began to fight timid, as if he were afraid of getting hit with a big shot from Lacy. His fears seemed groundless, because Lacy looked all show and no go, having not even a semblance of his old power. As such, Lacy was extremely fortunate to get out of that fight with a victory, for if Manfredo had fought with a little more fire, he would have likely done more than enough to get the win.

Lacy has now had another seven months to build back up the strength in his previously injured left shoulder, and it should be interesting to see if he’s recaptured the power that he once had in that area. In a lot of cases, an injury as serious as a rotator cuff tear causes permanent damage to the shoulder, weakening it and causing less flexibility in the shoulder area that it previously had.

This is one of the major reasons that few baseball pitchers, the ones that most often experience this kind of injury, are able to come back from an injury as seriously debilitating as this. In boxing, it’s usually less serious because the fighter has two arms to use instead of one in the case of pitchers, but if the area of the injury is the major area of power for the fighter, like in Lacy’s case, it can lead to a significant loss of power in the area. Hopefully, Lacy has done enough training and stretching to recapture a portion of what he once had, because that may be more than enough to beat most super middleweights in the division.

Tonight’s opponent for Lacy, the 32 year-old Mendoza is coming off a 4th round blowout to IBF light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson in September 2007. Mendoza never had a chance against the much quicker Dawson and took a tremendous beating for four rounds. Up until now, Mendoza has faced mostly limited opposition, and the few good opponents he’s faced like David Lopez and Try Rowland, he’s lost to them.

The one exception to this case was his 1st round stoppage of the then unbeaten Ruben Williams in 2003. Mendoza has a lot of power, and if he can catch up to Lacy, he has a good chance of taking him out early with a big shot. However, if the fight goes into the deeper rounds, then look for Lacy to likely win by a decision. I doubt that Lacy’s once awesome power has come back, so he’ll probably have to be content with earning a decision.