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From frankwarren.tv:
By TIM SMITH
Hard to imagine that there would be any positive benefits from such a beating, but Jeff Lacy said his loss to Joe Calzaghe back in 2006 was the best thing that ever happened to him.
"It gave me a chance to really grow up in boxing," Lacy said.
"It really gave me the change to learn how the business of boxing works and where I needed to go in my career."
After coming up short against Calzaghe, and suffering a devastating rotator cuff injury, which required surgery and a year-long rehabilitation, Lacy finds himself at a crossroads. His career can go up or down, depending upon how he fares in his next few fights.
Lacy will meet Jermain Taylor, his 2000 U.S. Olympic boxing teammate, in a super middleweight title elimination match on Nov. 15.
It is a rare meeting of Olympic teammates.
The last time it happened in the U.S., Evander Holyfield and Henry Tillman, teammates on the 1984 U.S. Olympic boxing team, fought for a cruiserweight title in 1987.
Holyfield stopped Tillman on a seventh round TKO.
Lacy said he will not let his friendship with Taylor, who won a bronze medal at the Sydney Games, deter him from his ultimate goal, which is to regain his status as a super middleweight world champion.
There are plenty of doubts as to whether he can get back to where he was before the Calzaghe fight.
But Lacy said he will erase those doubts with a convincing victory over Taylor, who is on a comeback trail of his own after losing two straight matches and his middleweight title to Kelly Pavlik.
"We'll see if I'm all washed up and I'm not who everybody thinks I am (after the Taylor fight)," Lacy said. "That wasn't me in the fight against Calzaghe. In that Calzaghe fight I didn't show up."
In hindsight, Lacy said he really wasn’t ready to go to Manchester, England to fight Calzaghe on what amounted to his Calzaghe's home turf.
Lacy said his business affairs were a mess and crowded out all his thoughts on preparation for the fight.
He took his business troubles in the ring with him that night against Calzaghe and it cost him.
"I knew from that first punch that I threw that I didn't have it that night," Lacy said. "My punches didn't have any effect."
In his comeback fight, Lacy suffered extensive damage to his left shoulder, including tearing the rotator cuff, in the second round against Vitali Tsypko.
Lacy managed to win a decision in the fight, but it was a costly victory.
After having surgery to completely reconstruct the shoulder, Lacy took a year off.
Even after he came back there was still the mental block of whether he could deliver his trademark left hook with any effectiveness.
"It mentally bothered me a lot," Lacy said. "That was the toughest fight for me after that.
I knew the reason why I didn't look good. I knew the reason why I didn't look like I should in those fights. I knew the reason for not being prepared for those fights."
But Lacy was taught not to use physical limitations as an excuse for his performance. So he went into the ring hiding his mental and physical problems. He said he is 100% heal now, and has no hesitancy with throwing the left hook with power. The big question for him is whether his skill level has suffered through his ineffectiveness in the ring.
That is what his trainer, Roger Bloodworth, still isn't sure about.
"I think he has the advantage (over Taylor) with his speed, his physical strength and his endurance," Bloodworth said. "We'll see what his skill level is. He's going to have to put everything together for this fight."
Two years removed from the debacle against Calzaghe, Lacy believes he is more mature and wiser and knows how to handle himself in the ring. Taylor is the perfect litmus test to determine whether Lacy really has benefited from the lessons of the loss against Calzaghe.
http://www.frankwarren.tv/drill/News...23.html?cmd=id
Hard to imagine that there would be any positive benefits from such a beating, but Jeff Lacy said his loss to Joe Calzaghe back in 2006 was the best thing that ever happened to him.
"It gave me a chance to really grow up in boxing," Lacy said.
"It really gave me the change to learn how the business of boxing works and where I needed to go in my career."
After coming up short against Calzaghe, and suffering a devastating rotator cuff injury, which required surgery and a year-long rehabilitation, Lacy finds himself at a crossroads. His career can go up or down, depending upon how he fares in his next few fights.
Lacy will meet Jermain Taylor, his 2000 U.S. Olympic boxing teammate, in a super middleweight title elimination match on Nov. 15.
It is a rare meeting of Olympic teammates.
The last time it happened in the U.S., Evander Holyfield and Henry Tillman, teammates on the 1984 U.S. Olympic boxing team, fought for a cruiserweight title in 1987.
Holyfield stopped Tillman on a seventh round TKO.
Lacy said he will not let his friendship with Taylor, who won a bronze medal at the Sydney Games, deter him from his ultimate goal, which is to regain his status as a super middleweight world champion.
There are plenty of doubts as to whether he can get back to where he was before the Calzaghe fight.
But Lacy said he will erase those doubts with a convincing victory over Taylor, who is on a comeback trail of his own after losing two straight matches and his middleweight title to Kelly Pavlik.
"We'll see if I'm all washed up and I'm not who everybody thinks I am (after the Taylor fight)," Lacy said. "That wasn't me in the fight against Calzaghe. In that Calzaghe fight I didn't show up."
In hindsight, Lacy said he really wasn’t ready to go to Manchester, England to fight Calzaghe on what amounted to his Calzaghe's home turf.
Lacy said his business affairs were a mess and crowded out all his thoughts on preparation for the fight.
He took his business troubles in the ring with him that night against Calzaghe and it cost him.
"I knew from that first punch that I threw that I didn't have it that night," Lacy said. "My punches didn't have any effect."
In his comeback fight, Lacy suffered extensive damage to his left shoulder, including tearing the rotator cuff, in the second round against Vitali Tsypko.
Lacy managed to win a decision in the fight, but it was a costly victory.
After having surgery to completely reconstruct the shoulder, Lacy took a year off.
Even after he came back there was still the mental block of whether he could deliver his trademark left hook with any effectiveness.
"It mentally bothered me a lot," Lacy said. "That was the toughest fight for me after that.
I knew the reason why I didn't look good. I knew the reason why I didn't look like I should in those fights. I knew the reason for not being prepared for those fights."
But Lacy was taught not to use physical limitations as an excuse for his performance. So he went into the ring hiding his mental and physical problems. He said he is 100% heal now, and has no hesitancy with throwing the left hook with power. The big question for him is whether his skill level has suffered through his ineffectiveness in the ring.
That is what his trainer, Roger Bloodworth, still isn't sure about.
"I think he has the advantage (over Taylor) with his speed, his physical strength and his endurance," Bloodworth said. "We'll see what his skill level is. He's going to have to put everything together for this fight."
Two years removed from the debacle against Calzaghe, Lacy believes he is more mature and wiser and knows how to handle himself in the ring. Taylor is the perfect litmus test to determine whether Lacy really has benefited from the lessons of the loss against Calzaghe.
http://www.frankwarren.tv/drill/News...23.html?cmd=id
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