BoxRec

In contrast to many here, I don't find this latest matchup SOOO bad -- after all Calzaghe fights the third top 10 super-middleweight in a row. When has he ever done this before? Perhaps in 2000/01, when he fought Starie-Sheika-Woodhall-Veit consecutively, but otherwise -- no.

Of course Calzaghe still has to fight a top 3 super-middleweight, but I personally have more or less given up hope that he never will. In spite of obvious talent, he seems to have settled for a mediocre career and has no higher ambitions -- well, this is his choice, and needs to be accepted.

P

I think just about everyone here has accepted that more or less. All these Calzaghe threads are like beating a dead horse.

When did Bika become a top ten SMW? The guy has yet to win at SMW, and I'm sorry, but a 4 round draw against whoever doesn't prove much other than you can come out and fight early.

If you asked many people prior to the Calzaghe-Lacy fight to name their top 3 super-middleweights, Lacy would have been mentioned in most of them. In speaking to every American bar none, Lacy was “the man” and was going to “whup Calzaghe’s fag ass” etc etc etc…

Then Calzaghe beats him and all of a sudden “Lacy was never any good”….

If Calzaghe fights Kessler and beats him, will opinions on Kessler follow the current opinions of Lacy?

Calzaghe admittedly hasn’t always fought the best, but to a degree I think he can’t win – especially in the eyes of people like pundit.

Bika was probably top 15 mw, but no better than 20-30 or so SMW. Manfredo in all honesty hasn't done nearly enough to be considered even top 20.

Loftgroov wrote:If you asked many people prior to the Calzaghe-Lacy fight to name their top 3 super-middleweights, Lacy would have been mentioned in most of them. In speaking to every American bar none, Lacy was “the man” and was going to “whup Calzaghe’s fag ass” etc etc etc…

Then Calzaghe beats him and all of a sudden “Lacy was never any good”….

If Calzaghe fights Kessler and beats him, will opinions on Kessler follow the current opinions of Lacy?

Calzaghe admittedly hasn’t always fought the best, but to a degree I think he can’t win – especially in the eyes of people like pundit.

You are clearly spoeaking from a very "american media" point of view. Outside of the US Lacy was never the favorite... I myself put a lot of money on Lacy (and said so before the fight) because I could not imagine Lacy winning. He simply hadn't beaten anyone. He didn';t even beat a champ to get the belt. Kessler has beaten many champs and beat current champs to get both his belts. You cannot compare the two. Also look at how they won.. Lacy had troubles with limited Sheika, Wiggins etc. etc. far from convincing.. while Kessler has lost 2 rounds (and narrowly so) in his entire carreer. You cannot AT ALL compare them.

Deram wrote:

Loftgroov wrote:If you asked many people prior to the Calzaghe-Lacy fight to name their top 3 super-middleweights, Lacy would have been mentioned in most of them. In speaking to every American bar none, Lacy was “the man” and was going to “whup Calzaghe’s fag ass” etc etc etc…

Then Calzaghe beats him and all of a sudden “Lacy was never any good”….

If Calzaghe fights Kessler and beats him, will opinions on Kessler follow the current opinions of Lacy?

Calzaghe admittedly hasn’t always fought the best, but to a degree I think he can’t win – especially in the eyes of people like pundit.

You are clearly spoeaking from a very "american media" point of view. Outside of the US Lacy was never the favorite... I myself put a lot of money on Lacy (and said so before the fight) because I could not imagine Lacy winning. He simply hadn't beaten anyone. He didn';t even beat a champ to get the belt. Kessler has beaten many champs and beat current champs to get both his belts. You cannot compare the two. Also look at how they won.. Lacy had troubles with limited Sheika, Wiggins etc. etc. far from convincing.. while Kessler has lost 2 rounds (and narrowly so) in his entire carreer. You cannot AT ALL compare them.

I agree. That was the jingoist Yank version, i.e. Lacy was champion by default because he was American.

Anyone with half a brain would have looked how easily Calzaghe disposed of Sheika, who extended Lacy.

Now that Lacy fled from Gary Shaw, even Shaw is saying:

“I took Jeff Lacy from the Olympics and helped him win a world title. I did a masterful job with him. I never said he was a great fighter. He isn't. I said he punches like Tyson. Look at his record. There are no names there, unless they were shot fighters. I brought him along carefully. Omar Sheika was shot and he gave Lacy all he could handle. He hates me now because Calzaghe beat him pillar to pillar. I paid him $1 million for that fight. I thought he could beat Calzaghe. I may have underestimated (Calzaghe). And Lacy may have been in awe of Calzaghe, he just didn't fight. That wasn't Jeff Lacy,” Shaw said.

Shaw Takes The Gloves Off, 28 Oct '06
http://www.tigerboxing.com/articles/ind ... 1001245806

Deram wrote:
Outside of the US Lacy was never the favorite... I myself put a lot of money on Lacy (and said so before the fight) because I could not imagine Lacy winning.

Eh?

You’d have had a job to find a single person who was saying that before the Lacy-Calzaghe fight. My recollection is that people fell into two camps, those that thought Lacy would spark him (mainly Yanks), and those who thought Calzaghe “might win”. I don’t recall many, if any, saying Calzaghe would win easily.

Also its all very well doing a comparison of Kessler and Lacy now….that is, now we know what Lacy is capable of, but nobody was saying it at the time. Likewise its all very well acting like a boxing purist post-fight in outlining and analysing how Kessler’s opposition and fight record meant he has always have been the better and stronger opposition for Calzaghe.

If Calzaghe beat Godzilla tomorrow there would still be an influx of Americans claiming hes a bum.

Lacy sounds like a sore loser for getting a pounding!

Loftgroov wrote:

Deram wrote:
Outside of the US Lacy was never the favorite... I myself put a lot of money on Lacy (and said so before the fight) because I could not imagine Lacy winning.

Eh?

You’d have had a job to find a single person who was saying that before the Lacy-Calzaghe fight. My recollection is that people fell into two camps, those that thought Lacy would spark him (mainly Yanks), and those who thought Calzaghe “might win”. I don’t recall many, if any, saying Calzaghe would win easily.

Also its all very well doing a comparison of Kessler and Lacy now….that is, now we know what Lacy is capable of, but nobody was saying it at the time. Likewise its all very well acting like a boxing purist post-fight in outlining and analysing how Kessler’s opposition and fight record meant he has always have been the better and stronger opposition for Calzaghe.

If Calzaghe beat Godzilla tomorrow there would still be an influx of Americans claiming hes a bum.

Hmm... ok, I went so far as actually providing you with proff that ..no, Lacy was not seen as this great favorite. By americans yes, but otherwise no.

Here is the evidence

http://www.boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... zaghe+lacy
http://www.boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... zaghe+lacy

In the Brit forum Calzaghe was favored 34-29, in the General forum it was 46-45 Lacy. In the European forum Calzaghe was favored 24-7.

I know that if you get your information from HBO they made it sound like Lacy was all that. Read the article "The gloves come off" in Tigerboxing. His own promoter will give you the low-down on Lacy.

Loftgroov wrote:If you asked many people prior to the Calzaghe-Lacy fight to name their top 3 super-middleweights, Lacy would have been mentioned in most of them. In speaking to every American bar none, Lacy was “the man” and was going to “whup Calzaghe’s fag ass” etc etc etc…

Then Calzaghe beats him and all of a sudden “Lacy was never any good”….

If Calzaghe fights Kessler and beats him, will opinions on Kessler follow the current opinions of Lacy?

No. Kessler has shown his class too often by now to forbid such revisions.

But Warren won't allow Calzaghe to fight Kessler because it's not assured that he would beat him. Well, this is what mediocre careers are made of. Their choice. Then fight Manfredo and Bika instead.

As for Lacy, he was indeed very badly overrated before the fight. After all he struggled with the second- and third-rate fighters like Richard Grant, Omar Sheika and Syd Vanderpool. But folks wanted to believe in a "superfight" and hence ignored this. If you ask me Lacy is STILL overrated -- I see people claiming here that he would beat Mundine. But the simple fact is that a sober evaluation of the facts never allowed a top 3 rating for Lacy; and I cannot see how he ever will get there. Too many flaws.

Btw, the pre Calzaghe-Lacy hype reminded me strongly of Lennox-Tyson hype. Before that fight the boxing boxing boards were also split down the middle -- even though a sober assessment of recent performances should have indicated to everyone that Tyson would not be competitive with LL. At least in this case people concluded that Tyson was shot after the fact.

P

Deram wrote:Bika was probably top 15 mw, but no better than 20-30 or so SMW. Manfredo in all honesty hasn't done nearly enough to be considered even top 20.

So what 20 super-middleweights would you rank ahead of Manfredo?

I see: Calzaghe, Kessler, Mundine, Bute, Andrade, Beyer, Lacy, Inkin. These are 8. And then: Allan Green perhaps? Or Carl Froch? Or Sakio Bika? Or Mario Veit? None of them looks clearly better than Manfredo to me.

Hey Deram you do know that that poll proves jack, people could have voted after the fight occurred In PTBF, the poll is 50/50 but if you count the picks it's more like 65/35 Lacy.

Calzaghe was slight dog over in UK too, I know that because I placed a bet on willhill 20 mins before the fight, and I think I recall McKenzie saying Lacy is the favourite on the ITV (British) broadcast, I'll have to check that though.

As for Manfredo not top 20, well that's just plain stupid talk. Then again, ain't you the same guy that said Sheika isn't even top 150, and actually listed 100 guys before him?

Here is the Boxrec top 25. I think Manfredo deserves to be top 25. Mundine should not be 12th, and Lacy should not be 2nd. I don't care about their ratings, they're flawed but it gives an idea of what guys are up there in the top 25 or thereabouts, just not the correct ordering of them.

1 Joe Calzaghe 34 1,601 1993 42-0-0

2 Jeff Lacy 29 932 2001 21-1-0

3 Mikkel Kessler 27 857 1998 38-0-0

4 Carl Froch 29 701 2002 19-0-0

5 Peter Manfredo Jr 25 582 2000 26-3-0

6 Scott Dann 32 562 1997 25-2-0

7 Allan Green 27 545 2002 23-0-0

8 Denis Inkin 28 528 2001 29-0-0

9 Markus Beyer 35 509 1996 34-3-1

10 Mariano Natalio Carrera 26 500 2001 29-4-0

11 Alejandro Berrio 30 481 1997 25-4-0

12 Anthony Mundine 31 455 2000 26-3-0

13 Jean Paul Mendy 32 435 2000 23-0-0

14 Lucian Bute 26 430 2003 18-0-0

15 Daniel Santos 31 407 1996 30-3-1

16 Juergen Braehmer 28 396 1999 28-1-0

17 Sakio Bika 27 394 2000 20-2-2

18 David Gogiya 30 369 2003 16-1-0

19 David Alfonso Lopez 28 361 1995 28-13-0

20 Vitali Tsypko 30 357 1999 17-1-0

21 Sofiane Sebihi 27 318 2003 12-0-0

22 Mger Mkrtchian 29 304 2000 23-3-0

23 Yusaf Mack 26 279 2000 22-1-2

24 Ruben Eduardo Acosta 28 278 2002 12-1-4

25 Robert Stieglitz 25 277 2001 29-0-0

Scott Dann shouldn't even be on the list he's a middleweight, I think it was just his last fight was over the middleweight limit.

lvlarc_uk wrote:Hey Deram you do know that that poll proves jack, people could have voted after the fight occurred In PTBF, the poll is 50/50 but if you count the picks it's more like 65/35 Lacy.

BS. I remember well that right before the fight the general forum poll was split through the middle.

lvlarc_uk wrote:Hey Deram you do know that that poll proves jack, people could have voted after the fight occurred In PTBF, the poll is 50/50 but if you count the picks it's more like 65/35 Lacy.

Calzaghe was slight dog over in UK too, I know that because I placed a bet on willhill 20 mins before the fight, and I think I recall McKenzie saying Lacy is the favourite on the ITV (British) broadcast, I'll have to check that though.

As for Manfredo not top 20, well that's just plain stupid talk. Then again, ain't you the same guy that said Sheika isn't even top 150, and actually listed 100 guys before him?

I believe he said he's not Top 50...not sure if I'd agree with that, he ranked Tatsoveyan (the one Eastman struggled with) above him.

Here is what I wrote at the time (in the Brit forum).
I have to say, I admire my own farsightedness, expertise and wisdom!

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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 2:21 pm Post subject: Re: Lacy-Calzaghe...WHO WINS?

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As for the result: Calzaghe TKO. I reckon his grit and handspeed will be too much for the strong but rough and unexperienced Lacy. I see a replay of the Mitchell fight, except that Lacy may endure a bit longer. I have no doubt that the fact that Lacy's style suits Calzaghe is the reason why team Calzaghe chose him for a "unifier" - after 10 years. All previous beltholders had been too risky for Calzghe. And Lacy must have a rather poor management.

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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 2:21 pm Post subject: Re: Lacy-Calzaghe...WHO WINS?

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Mattyp151 wrote:

lvlarc_uk wrote:
Dude you are deluded, this is the best Super Middleweight fight we have had in recent years without a doubt.

You should check the Mikkel Kessler thread on the current scene to read more of pundit's blabbering about Kessler. It seems as if he's ready to coronate Kessler king for beating Lucas.

I'm not coranting anyone king before the top flights in the division haven't fought each other.

But Kessler looks the best and most complete of the current crop of super-middleweights, and before he's not been beaten noone can be crowned king. Thus far, he's been ducked form all quarters, including from Calzaghe (anyway) but also from Lacy, whose coach openly admitted that "Lacy is not ready for Kessler before 2007".

This is one (and the main) reason why the Lacy-Calzaghe matchup is much less than Frank Allegedly would want you to believe - but he does so with some success, it appears.

pundit wrote:

lvlarc_uk wrote:Hey Deram you do know that that poll proves jack, people could have voted after the fight occurred In PTBF, the poll is 50/50 but if you count the picks it's more like 65/35 Lacy.

BS. I remember well that right before the fight the general forum poll was split through the middle.

Maybe you can't read, or better yet count?

http://www.boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... zaghe+lacy

Do the research first and tell me that 65/35 Lacy is BS. No memory needed, just stats.

Dookus, here is Deram's post. http://www.boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=636392

lvlarc_uk wrote:

pundit wrote:

lvlarc_uk wrote:Hey Deram you do know that that poll proves jack, people could have voted after the fight occurred In PTBF, the poll is 50/50 but if you count the picks it's more like 65/35 Lacy.

BS. I remember well that right before the fight the general forum poll was split through the middle.

Maybe you can't read, or better yet count?

http://www.boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... zaghe+lacy

Do the research first and tell me that 65/35 Lacy is BS. No memory needed, just stats.

Dookus, here is Deram's post. http://www.boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=636392

Whatever the picks, the poll was split down the middle before that fight.

Yes, according to your memory. So what exactly was it about my post that was BS? Didn't like the stats?

Nevermind, I don't want to know

lvlarc_uk wrote:Yes, according to your memory. So what exactly was it about my post that was BS? Didn't like the stats?

Nevermind, I don't want to know

BS is your claim that the polls are even today because people voted after the fight. This is what Mattyp wrote a few days before Calzaghe-Lacy (last apge):

http://www.boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... s&start=50

Mattyp151

Joined: 12 Oct 2005
Posts: 12888
Location: Hunting MCB
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 8:51 pm Post subject:

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shoutout2u wrote:

THEBUTCH wrote:
I fancy Lacy by stoppage, somewhere between rounds 8-10

my take as well...looks like the voting is going 55-45 in favor of calzaghe here, which is about what i would expect!!

british fans tend to be more iknowledgeable & relistic than those from many countries!!!

It's 55/45 here, and in Current scene it was like 58/42 for Lacy....that's about as even as you can get.

Btw, since we're already citing old entries, this is how you hedged your bets before the fight:

It's a hard fight to pick, that's what makes it such a great matchup.

Will Lacy land a bomb early and KO Calzaghe. Will Calzaghe use his boxing skills well enough to counter and evade Lacy's left hook.

I'm edging towards a decision or late TKO for Calzaghe.

Seems I had far more confidence in your boy Calzaghe than you did...

This said, of course one could write even more idoitc stuff. Here is (who else) our friend taki:

It's a 50/50 fight... Lacey is unproven against absolutely top class opposition, on the other hand Calzaghe has hardly looked convincing of late. It's got draw written all over it...

I think your trouble with reading may be playing apart again.

Hey Deram you do know that that poll proves jack, people could have voted after the fight occurred In PTBF, the poll is 50/50 but if you count the picks it's more like 65/35 Lacy.

Notice no mention of polls? Stick to the script bud. As I've said I'd take the stats over your dodgy memory.

I was spot on with my pick, Calzaghe avoided the bombs early and schooled Lacy, if you look for more of my posts you'll notice I only became more vocal after all the morons were saying Lacy was going to batter Joe.

http://www.boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=451063

Some info on the betting odds regarding Calzaghe-Lacy for UK bookies, proving that Lacy was infact the favourite here too.

Antonio Tarver was favored over Hopkins 3 to 1 and that fight wasn't close either...I wouldn't say bookies are the end all of sports knowledge. I haven't ever met a bookie that was rich.