By 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.”
By Nate Anderson: In the latest boxing news, WBC super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe has decided to vacate his WBC title, leaving it open for the next available contenders, in this case Carl Froch (23-0, 19 KOs) and former middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (27-2-1, 17 KOs), now fighting as a super middleweight. However, it’s unclear whether Taylor, 29, whom has lost back to back fights against Kelly Pavlik, would be interested in facing the hard-hitting but largely unknown Froch, as Taylor has been reportedly showing interest in fighting former IBF super middleweight champion Jeff Lacy instead. A fight against the still popular Lacy, though greatly diminished since his loss to Calzaghe in 2006, would likely be a much more appealing fight in terms of the media than a bout against Froch, even without a title on the line. 
By Tim Williams: Ever since I found out about former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (27-1-1, 17 KOs) was planning on fighting a rematch with new middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (32-0, 29 KOs), I’ve thought that Taylor was either slightly deluded about his chances, or he had some secret weapon hidden up his sleeve, something that would almost guarantee him a win. Let’s hope for Taylor’s sake that he does have something that he does have some trick that will enable him to defeat Pavlik, because if he should lose a second time to him, it will possibly due damage to his boxing career.