By Jim Dower: Tonight at the Sun Dome, in Tampa, Florida, super middleweight contender Jeff Lacy (24-2, 17 KOs) will be back in the ring against Otis Griffin (19-4-2, 7 KOs), the 2004 winner of reality television show “The Next Great Champ.” Lacy, now 31, was defeated in his last fight against Jermain Taylor by a 12-round unanimous decision loss in November.
Lacy says that he wasn’t able to fight at his best level in his last fight because Taylor is a close friend of his, which prevented Jeff from fighting as hard as he wanted to in the fight. However, against Griffin, a stranger to Lacy, he feels that things will be much different in the ring this time.
Let’s hope so for Lacy’s sake, because he can’t afford another loss if he wants to stay relevant in the super middleweight division. As of now, Lacy is ranked at number #7 in the IBF and he needs to keep winning if he wants to get a future shot against IBF champion Lucian Bute.
Griffin, 33, has lost three out of his last four fights to Danny Green, Jesse Brinkley and Enad Licina. That’s a good thing for Lacy, because what he needs most of all right now is a fast, easy knockout and one that looks impressive. Incredibly, Lacy has a knockout drought of four years, last getting a knockout victory in 2005 with a 2nd round stoppage over Scott Pemberton in November 2005.
Lacy would lose his next fight, a 12-round loss to Joe Calzaghe in March 2006. Lacy suffered a shoulder injury in a 10-round majority decision win against Vitali Tsypko in December 2006. Lacy has since defeated Peter Manfredo Jr. and Epifanio Mendoza, but both fights went to decision and were tough wins for Lacy.
At looking at the super middleweight division, it’s hard to see a good future for Lacy in there. You’ve got younger fighters like Andre Dirrell, Andre Ward, Jean Pascal, Allan Green, and tough veterans like Librado Andrade, Lucian Bute, Mikkel Kessler, Carl Froch, Jermain Taylor, Karoly Balzsay, Denis Inkin, Dimitri Sartison and Sakio Bika.
I think Lacy has some great skills and excellent power in his right hand, but I don’t that he can beat any of these guys. And that’s going to be a problem for Lacy as he moves forward beyond tonight’s bout with Griffin. I expect Lacy to knock Griffin out without many problems, because Griffin has historically had problems when stepping it up against top level competition like Lacy.
However, a win over Griffin doesn’t solve anything for Lacy other than keeping him around for a little while longer in the super middleweight division. If he wants to stay on top, Lacy is going to have to be able to contend with the above mentioned super middleweights in the division and I’m not so confident that he can at this point in his career.
Maybe before he injured his left should Lacy could have, but now? I just don’t know. If he can’t beat those types of fighters, then Lacy needs to make some hard decisions about his career. Does he want to just stick around and hope to get a title shot or two, make some decent cash because of his name or is he better off retiring from the sport?
Of course, Lacy could possibly move up in weight and seek out the light heavyweight division to find greener pastures. With mediocre champions like Zsolt Erdei, Hugo Gary and Adrian Diaconu, Lacy would have an excellent chance of picking up a title against any of them.
IBF light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson would obviously be too big, quick and powerful for Lacy, but he’s only one of the champions. Lacy would have three much easier alternatives rather than facing Dawson.
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