Jermain Taylor and Jeff Lacy Meet at The Crossroads

Jermain Taylor and Jeff Lacy are at the crossroads of their respective careers and tonight one of them, to paraphrase the Robert Johnson (then later Eric Clapton) song, is going down.  It’s somehow fitting that the proverbial crossroads where Taylor and Lacy meet, though not the backwoods of Mississippi, is still in the American south; Nashville, Tennessee to be exact.

The way these two men have arrived at this confluence has been a strange trip indeed.  Jermain Taylor is fighting for the first time since back-to-back losses to Kelly Pavlik, while Jeff Lacy has won three in a row since he absorbed a brutal beating at the hands of Joe Calzaghe.  The strangeness of situation comes from the perceptions that exist about each man stemming from their respective last fights.

Taylor, after being stopped in the seventh round in his first meeting with Pavlik, exercised a clause for an immediate rematch at a catch weight of 164 lbs.  In the rematch he fought a much better fight, but ultimately lost by a close unanimous decision.  Taylor was lauded for showing a resilience and desire that hadn’t been present in the four fights prior to the second loss to Pavlik.  He’d lost by KO to Pavlik, beat blown-up Junior Middleweights Cory Spinks and Kassim Ouma and had gained a questionable draw against Winky Wright.

Lacy, on the other hand, has gained three unimpressive victories in a row following the Calzaghe loss.  After his narrow victory over Vitali Tsypko, Lacy underwent rotator cuff surgery and had another extended layoff from the ring.  He then fought Peter Manfredo and escaped with a decision victory and then did the same against Epifanio Mendoza last summer.  Both decisions were seen as very questionable at best.  But the most troubling aspect is that both Manfredo and Mendoza are fighters that Jeff Lacy probably would’ve blown out in the past.  There are two questions that remain about Lacy:  Did the Calzaghe fight leave him a shell of the fighter we all thought he was? Or did it merely expose him as overrated and one-dimensional?

 

For the fight itself, expect Taylor to use his superior athleticism, and if he were smart, his piston-like jab, which he’s employed far too infrequently, to keep Lacy off of him and control the tempo.  Lacy, on the flip side wants to make this a fight.  He wants to get up inside of Taylor’s reach and try to catch him with a big shot.  The more heated the exchanges become, the more it favors Lacy.

Yet another story line for this fight is the history that these two men share.  They were teammates on the 2000 U.S. Olympic Boxing Team.  There have been fights between men who’ve claimed to be friends in the past, sometimes resulting in yawners.  These two fighters must put aside any friendship they may have, at least for the duration of the contest, in order to reclaim their stakes as serious contenders.  There can be no friendship in this gladiator sport once they step between the ropes.