By William Mackay: Next week, former boxing great Roy Jones Jr. (53-5, 39 KO’s), now 40-years-old, will be stepping into the ring in a 12 round bout against former IBF super middleweight champion Jeff Lacy (25-2, 17 KO’s) at the Gulf Coast Arena, in Biloxi, Mississippi. At stake for the bout will be Jones’ obscure WBO NABO light heavyweight belt and the bragging rights between two fading former champions.
Beyond Jones’ little known title, it’s hard to say what relevance this fight has beyond just basic entertainment for a handful of the fans that will be paying to watch the bout. Jones and Lacy are currently ranked in the top 10 in the light heavyweight division, but the chances of either of them winning a title in the near future are pretty slim at this point.
Indeed, I can’t see either Jones or Lacy ever winning another major title again. Both of them look shot and well past their primes at this stage of their careers. That’s not to say that they’ve lost all their boxing ability, but unfortunately they appear to have lost enough to the point where it would it probably take a miracle for either of them to win another title.
It’s unfortunate that neither of them are fighting WBA light heavyweight champion Gabriel Campillo next, because as much as Lacy and Jones have deteriorated as fighters, I could give them a decent chance at beating Campillo, who appears to be one of the weakest champions that I recall ever seeing in the light heavyweight division.
Unfortunately, Beibut Shumenov will be getting the chance to fight Campillo next Saturday night instead. However, it’s perhaps for the better because even if Jones and Lacy were able to beat Campillo and win the title, they’d face immediate problems in having to defend the title against the likes of Glen Johnson, Hugo Hernan Garay and Jurgen Brahmer.
That wouldn’t be good because I doubt that Jones or Lacy would even be competitive against those fighters. Against each other, though, Jones and Lacy should put on a good fight. Lacy, 32, has looked bad in his last five fights, struggling in all of them and losing badly to Jermain Taylor.
Lacy hasn’t looked the same since being soundly defeated in a 12 round decision loss to Joe Calzaghe in 2006. Some people think that Calzaghe ruined Lacy’s confidence. That may be, but I think Lacy’s injury to his left shoulder in his fight against Vitali Tsypko in 2006 has been a bigger factor in Lacy’s decrease in ability. Lacy has still been winning for the most part since his loss to Calzaghe, but he’s no longer dominating like he was then and hasn’t recorded one knockout victory since that time.
With the exception of his fight against Taylor in November 2008, Lacy has been in soft with largely B level opponents. That’s the worrying part about it. Lacy hasn’t even been facing top grade opponents, yet he’s struggled in all five of his fights since the Calzaghe defeat.
Jones, for his part, hasn’t been the same since being taken out in the 2nd round five years ago by Antonio Tarver. Jones looks slower, less energetic, and his punch resistance has decreased since that time. And he’s been beaten three more times since the Tarver loss, getting stopped by Glen Johnson in a 9th round stoppage, and beaten by Tarver and Calzaghe in one-sided 12 round decision defeats. Jones’ only wins during that time have come at the expense of faded fighters like Felix Trinidad and Omar Sheika, as well as victories over B level fighters Prince Badi Ajamu and Anthony Hanshaw.
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