By Eric Thomas: Jeff “Left Hook” Lacy (25-2, 17 KOs) will be facing Roy Jones Jr. (53-5, 39 KOs) next in a fight that will possibly be taking place on August 22nd, according to a news report from Dan Rafael of ESPN. The contract was signed today for a bout that will be in effect an old timer’s fight between Jones and Lacy, neither of which are considered championship material by many boxing experts.
The bout will be fought at 170 pounds rather than 175, Jones’ fighting weight in the light heavyweight division. As of now, there’s still no location for the fight. It’s a fight that is hard to understand the attraction for either fighter, because neither of Jones or Lacy stand to gain much from a victory over the other because of the way they’ve both struggled in the past few years.
In Jones’ case, he’s been having problems in the ring since his first fight following his sensational 12 round decision over John Ruiz in Jones’ heavyweight venture in 2003. The resulting loss of weight for Jones to make light heavyweight left Jones far less effective from that point forward.
Four losses in five years has left Jones very selective in choosing his opponents, picking mostly little known beatable fighters to mix it up with. Jones broke the patter last year following an old timer’s bout against Felix Trinidad when Jones was easily defeated by Joe Calzaghe in a 12 round decision in Calzaghe’s final fight of his boxing career in November 2008.
Jones, ranked number #5 in the WBO and WBA, is in the situation where he’ll have to take on one of the top four guys if he wants to get an eventual title shot against WBA champion Hugo Garay or WBO title holder Zsolt Erdei.
Besides the obvious point that Jones would probably lose to both of them, it’s not fight that would earn Jones much of a paycheck even if he could fight his way into position for a title match. In both cases, Glen Johnson, who previously knocked Jones out in the 9th round back in September 2004, stands in Jones’ way at the number #4 spot.
Lacy, 32, a former IBF super middleweight champion, was one of the best fighters in the division until losing to Calzaghe in 2006. Lacy has been trying to resurrect his sinking career since that fight, but has struggled in winning four of five fights.
The only victories that Lacy has been able to claim during the past three years have come at the expense of less than champion caliber fighters. Lacy looked horrible in losing to Jermain Taylor by a 12-round decision in November 2008. In his last fight, Lacy defeated Otis Griffin by a 10 round majority decision on April 10th, a fight that could easily have been a draw.
Lacy has become a mostly a fighter that relies on his right hand nowadays to land his more significant punches, as Lacy has lost much of his once devastating power in his left hook after injury his shoulder in his fight with Vitaly Tsypko in December 2006. Lacy still remains a hard hitter with his right hand, but he’s much more one dimensional than he previously was when he had two fisted power.
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