Lacy Defeats Mendoza On Questionable Decision, Will Fight Jermain Taylor Next

By Boxing News - 07/25/2008 - Comments

lacy46357.jpgBy Chris Williams: Former IBF super middleweight champion Jeff Lacy (24-1, 17 KOs) battled long and hard on Wednesday night winning a 10-round majority decision over Colombian journeyman Epifanio Mendoza (28-6-1, 24 KOs) at the Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, in Cabazon, California. The final judges’ scores were 96-94, 97-93 and 95-95. I had Mendoza winning the fight by one round, although I could see the fight being scored a draw, but definitely not a victory for Lacy. He did little after the 5th round, and appeared to lose the 6th though 9th rounds by a wide margin while also being badly hurt in the 2nd and 8th rounds. Given Mendoza’s lack of popularity among boxing fans, I wasn’t particularly surprised that he came out the losing end of the fight, but let’s not kid ourselves, Lacy, 31, didn’t come close to winning the fight and should consider himself very fortunate to have been given the gift decision.

Afterwards, sounding more than a little defensive, Lacy, his left eye swollen, said “I think I did a marvelous job. He [Epifanio Mendoza] should have done what he had to do in the ring to get the win.”

I hate to rain on Lacy’s parade, but Mendoza did appear to do enough to get the win, at least from what I saw of the fight. Even if you were to twist around your perceptions of the round and give Lacy some of the rounds between six and nine (rounds which Mendoza seemed to dominate), it wasn’t a pretty picture to see Lacy getting staggered and hurt repeatedly by Mendoza nor was it good to see Lacy take one big right hand after another, causing his left eye to swell up.

Mendoza was a fighter that Lacy, if he really is still a top 10 opponent like his current rankings suggest, should have either taken out quickly like Chad Dawson did recently with Mendoza or beaten by a clear cut decision. Unfortunately, Lacy did neither and fought Mendoza more or less even for the entire fight. Given that Mendoza is closer to a C level fighter than an A level one, it didn’t look good to see Lacy have to struggle against him.

Lacy looked good in the 1st round in which he threw a lot of hard shots with his right hand, and also mixed in power left hooks (formerly his trade mark punch before injuring it in his fight with Vitali Tsypko in December 2006). Though his left hook wasn’t anywhere close to being as powerful as it used to be before his surgery to repair a rotator cuff injury, it looked adequate enough to cause Mendoza to back up often.

I’d forgotten how good Lacy’s right hand was. He looked really good when he was unloading on Mendoza with it, making a loud banging noise each time it would land and getting the crowd into the fight. I half expected Mendoza to go down, because he’s been stopped twice in the past two years by lesser punchers than Lacy. Mendoza did little in the round other than take shots.

In the 2nd round, Lacy was having a really good round for the first two minutes until he ran into a big looping right hand from Mendoza that landed on the top of Lacy’s head, causing to stagger around the ring. Mendoza then went after him throwing a flurry of shots, staggering Lacy for a second time after hitting him with a big left hand to the head. With 30 seconds left in the round, Lacy suddenly came to life and started firing back as Mendoza appeared to have punched himself out.

In rounds three though five, Lacy came back strong throwing very hard right hands to the head. He was strictly limited to throwing only his right hand with power, but he continued to throw his left hook on occasion with little effect on Mendoza. In the 3rd, Lacy slightly hurt Mendoza with a tremendous right hand to the head. Seeing him, Lacy tried his best to finish him off but Mendoza showed a good chin, and lasted out the round under a constant barrage from Lacy.

In both the 4th and 5th, Lacy threw really hard shots, landing well with his right hand and missing badly at times with his left hook. He seemed really tight when attempting to throw his left hook, as if the flexibility and range of motion weren’t quite the same as before. By the end of the 5th round, Lacy was showing signs of fatigue from having thrown a lot of punches while trying to take out Mendoza.

In the 6th, Mendoza took over the fight, knocking Lacy’s mouthpiece out early in the round and tagging him off with big right hands. Near the end of the round, Lacy’s nose was bleeding from the numerous right hands he had been hit with during the round. Lacy continued to fight back but he now seemed to be fighting in slow motion, as if he had punched himself out. The action slowed down considerably in the 7th as both fighters threw mostly slower, weaker shots at one another. Lacy, however, seemed to get the far worst of it, his left eye starting to swell up during the round.

Early in the 8th round, Lacy was staggered by a big looking right hand from Mendoza. Immediately after the shot landed, Lacy ran forward and tackled Mendoza roughly sending him to the canvas where he landed on top of him, injuring Mendoza’s neck in the process. The crowd booed the move by Lacy, probably assuming that Lacy had done it to buy himself some time after being hurt by Mendoza.

However, after the action resumed, Mendoza almost immediately staggered Lacy again with another big right hand to the head. Somehow, Lacy lasted out the round by moving on the outside and clinching. Mendoza continued to dominate the fight in the 9th, hitting Lacy hard often with uppercuts to the head and big looping right hands. In the 10th round, Lacy seemed to will himself back to life taking the fight to Mendoza and doing just a little more than him to win the round. Lacy looked far from good in the round, moving around and throwing nothing but weak shots due to his fatigue.

With this win, Lacy will be moving on to a show down with former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor on November 15th. Judging on how poor Lacy looked against Mendoza, I give Lacy little chance at beating Taylor.



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