ESPN's Wednesday Night Fights: Jeff Lacy VS Epifanio Mendoza

ESPN's Wednesday Night Fights: Jeff Lacy VS Epifanio Mendoza
ESPN Boxing Broadcast: Wednesday Night Fights.
Date: July 23, 2008
Division: Super Middleweights
Rounds Scheduled: 10
Place: Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, Cabazon, California, United States








Fighters:

Epifanio Mendoza:
Record:28-5-1 with 24 kayos
Height: 6'2
Weight: 171 LBS
Age: 32
Residence: Barranquilla, Colombia

*Tessitore says he has one-punch kayo power with his right hand. He was stopped by Chad Dawson in four rounds. He took that fight on short notice and believes that the ref stopped the fight too early. He says he knows how to relax in the ring and box now instead of looking for the knock out.

Jeff Lacy:
Record: 23-1-0 with 17 kayos
Height: 5'9
Weight: 170 lbs
Age: 31
Hometown: St. Petersburg, Florida, USA

*Tessitore says Lacy recently injured his left should. That's bad for ''Left Hook'' Lacy, I'd say. We all likely remember that Lacy's lone loss came from a complete outclassing bombardment by Joe Calzaghe. The speed was overwhelming. Lacy's last fight was against Peter Manfredo when he one a close decision. Ring Magazine's Super Middleweight rankings have Mikkel Kessler at the top of the heap under Champion Joe Calzaghe and Lacy is down at number five under Librado Andrade but above Carl Froch.

BE's round by round scoring and breakdown:
Our Referee: Jack Reiss

R1: for Lacy: Joe Tessitore remarks that Mendoza's fight with Chad Dawson was as a Light Heavyweight. Atlas says that he notices Lacy has scar tissue over both eyes and lately has a tendency to cut there. Lacy is sharp and alert tonight and scores a very heavy right hand on Mendoza and muscles him around a bit, getting him into the corner. You can hear Lacy's shots. Lacy is one built up 5'9. He seems vulnerable to Mendoza's uppercuts with the way he's rushing in now. Mendoza starts bringing his game at the end of the round after looking stuck in the corner for a bit of inside fighting. Mendoza had little luck using his height and trying to keep his distance in the first half of the round and after eating some good shots, seemed to stop trying to.

R2: for Mendoza: Teddy is right. Mendoza's wide stance is ridiculous and not helping his mobility at all. Again, though Mendoza is trying, he is not good at using distance and keeping in safe range. Lacy just jumps right in and throws his upper body into range to make his shot. He lands a long, long right hand and backs Epi up. Epi looks to be making fun, playing it off. He returns a long hard right to Lacy in kind. Lacy acts like it was nothing. These guys deserve each other. They're getting tangled up a bit and it's Lacy's fault coming in. Lacy lands some good body shots. Mendoza loads up and the bulling Lacy never sees the right that travels long distance to hurt and stumble him. Epi is on him to try and end it crushing him with two good lefts and knocking him back into the corner. Lacy may be more resilient than Epi can consider as he forces Lacy to stumble back to the next side of the ring, covering up. Lacy is on poor legs stumbling to a different corner now but catches Epi with a thunderous right, to keep him off. Epi might be hurt now as a result. At the end of the round, Lacy lands three clubbing shots on Epi who is fighting back but taking the worst of it at the end. It's a HUGE round but I think overall it's Epi who had Lacy in more trouble for longer. What a fight!

R3: for Lacy: In the replay, we see the shot that rocked Lacy was as I thought on the top of Lacy's head. Lacy's can take a punch and come back though, he's tough. Teddy says Lacy continuously shows fundamental flaws, among them his rushing in. This time Lacy nearly pulls an Evander as he bulls in and almost catches the taller man with the top of his head. I see Lacy's left hook coming to play slightly now as well as Epi's uppercut taking advantage of the opening Lacy has for it. Teddy predicted this. Lacy lands a thudding right and Epi immediately tags him with a right uppercut as Lacy is ducking downwards. Lacy lands a good one-two. Lacy has Mendoza backed up to the ropes often. Lacy ends the round with a beautiful left hook that knocks Mendoza's head back. Epi came to fight but he definitely took the hardest and most shots this last round.

R4: for Lacy: Mendoza his hurt by a low blow. Jack Reiss doesn't seem completely impressed by how low it was but warns Lacy to keep them up ''a little bit''. The camera's angle doesn't allow me to see it but Mendoza reacted strongly. Jack Reiss even told Mendoza that ''it wasn't that low'' if I heard correctly! Mendoza nodded. I don't know if there was some play acting there or not but Jack was definitely not concerned. Of course, they aren't Jack's balls in jeopardy. Lacy muscles Mendoza into the corner and Epi holds on. The ref warns Epi not to grab Lacy's head. Mendoza unwisely fights off of the ropes too much. Lacy just looks to have more brute strength and confidence now. The left hook snaps out faster than his other punches, knocking Epi's head back again. Tessitore says Lacy's nose is bleeding. Lacy takes a good straight right from Epi and returns it far harder and to no surprise, Epi's back is on the ropes again. Lacy fires a left hook then a straight right with total commitment rocking Epi to either side and his back touches another side of the ring. Lacy pounds Mendoza who tries to counter and duck like a pro, getting his right uppercut in a few times but he is getting creamed here.

R5: for Lacy: Jeff looks stronger and stronger. Mendoza looked possibly hurt, trying to clinch with Lacy and stumbling forward as he stumbles Lacy backward, he ends up getting into the ropes and falling in and to the floor. It's ruled not a knockdown. Mendoza looks hurt to me though. Lacy is just laying into him. Mendoza is slammed back with a big right hand. Lacy has ambidextrous power in this fight. His commitment to almost all of his punches is just making Mendoza look terribly outgunned. Epi's punches just don't seem to have ANYTHING in them by this round. Lacy gets Epi off balance briefly. He fires a blow that looks low and Lacy reacts. Another blow causes the ref to warn Mendoza to keep his hands up. He says it is the second time and if it happens again, it's a point. Lacy reacted a bit but I didn't see that the second punch was below the belt. It looked on the belt to me. It does seem like Jack is stricter on Mendoza than Lacy. Lacy doesn't need that bias if it's there.

R6: for Lacy: Coming into the second half of this ten rounder, I don't know how Mendoza has enough to beat Lacy in a decision and doubt he can upset him with a knockout punch when he's looking so weak. Shut my mouth. Mendoza cracks Lacy with a right and knocks his mouthpiece across the ring. He pushes Lacy backwards and the ref calls a time out to get Lacy's mouthpiece back. Epi gets another good right in to Lacy. We see Teddy has round 2 scored a 10/8 for Mendoza because he had Lacy in trouble so much. I think that's unfortunate. Lacy came back and briefly had Mendoza in trouble, ending strongly. I don't think it warranted a 10/8. Lacy returns a good right. Mendoza slips another good uppercut in from the ropes. Lacy's nose is still bleeding. I know a lot of judges would give that round to Mendoza for knocking Lacy's mouthpiece out but I'm not so impressed by him getting maybe five good shots in when virtually all of Lacy's shots were good strong ones. Other than the few good ones Mendoza threw, he was not committing to the brunt of his output like Lacy has been the whole fight. Lacy landed more shots and better ones from where I sit.

R7: for Lacy: Lacy scores with two great rights. I think a right hook and a right cross. Mendoza is just so easily put to the ropes and corners. Why a man with his advantages doesn't stay in the middle of the ring is beyond me. Lacy gets another hard right cross in after eating a right hook. Teddy gave the last round to Mendoza because he was asleep during much of the round-is my guess. He's got it 56-57 for Lacy so far. I'm shaking my head at how narrowly he has Lacy up. Lacy may have big defensive holes but his offense has been pure ring generalship. They're looking damned tired in the second half of the round. Mendoza maybe did just a bit more throwing than Lacy but again, I can't say he had the authority. You could call it a draw but I think Lacy's early rights edge out Mendoza's slight lead in activity in the second half of the round. They were pretty worn out and neither guy did a lot of damage to the other in the second half. Jack Reiss lightly if not disrespectfully pushed Mendoza's forehead back at the end of the round to separate them. He seems very biased against Mendoza/for Lacy to me right now.

R8: for Mendoza- with a 10/8 from me: Lacy looks like he has more energy with a second win now. He's bouncing. Lacy bulls Mendoza back to the ropes and the ref separates them. Jeff's eye is swelling up, says Joe Tessitore. Teddy's scorecard is tied up. Boy are we parting ways tonight. Mendoza seems to hurt Lacy and Lacy falls onto Mendoza and they both go sprawling across the ring and Mendoza is tackled by the hurt fighter. Mendoza's head and neck are on the bottom rope. He could've ended up hurt by this fall with Lacy on top of him.

Lacy was really hurt, he had trouble getting to his feet and off of Mendoza. He did buy himself time as Mendoza now looks to have hurt the back of his head or neck, understandably. The ref calls in a doctor, asking if Mendoza is okay. They allow Mendoza time to recover so Lacy got a real break there. The ref calls it an accidental foul and gives Mendoza a minute to recover. I agree, Lacy did not do this on purpose, he was just hanging on for dear life, not tackling him, I see in the replay. He was hurt by several headhunting punches from Mendoza that I didn't think Mendoza had left in him. They come back to action and trade left hooks and then trade right hands. Lacy is hurt and stumbled AGAIN. Mendoza could end this. He gets Lacy AGAIN with a flush left hook! He gets a 10/8 this time from ME! Lacy proves himself to be enormously courageous and resilient by surviving this round even considering the big gift of a time out for Mendoza. It's like round two all over again only more one sided.

R9: for Mendoza: I've got zero problem giving Epi that last round with a 10/8 because I know for certain that if Lacy hadn't have brought Epi down while hanging on, he'd have gone down by himself with a knock down ruled. There's no doubt in my mind of that whatsoever. I say if the ropes holding you up can be counted as a knock down, then the other man holding you up can work too. Either way, I give him the 10/8. This is a great fight. A war. Lacy wants to attack but he is really still not back from the damage completely. Lacy starts asserting himself again knocking Epi backward but Lacy's eye looks worse and is not just swollen but bleeding a bit according to Teddy. Lacy tries to steal the round at the end but I just don't know. I think Mendoza did enough to take the round even though he took some good thudding shots. He let go more looking like he's fresher now in this back and forth fight. What an even match down the stretch.

R10: for Lacy: Teddy had the last round even. I can understand that. Lacy is leaning in more than bulling in and getting tied up by Epi when he does it now. They're both worn out. Lacy's had to will himself hard to come through it all. Teddy is really making too much of Mendoza's uppercut and it's importance in this fight. He's right that it's something Lacy is open for but it hasn't been that much of a factor all in all. Lacy digs to get enough energy to edge out Mendoza for this close, close round.

BE's final scoring: 6 rounds to 3 for a very brave Jeff Lacy: 96-93 counting my 10/8 round for Mendoza.
Teddy's scorecard: 95-95!

The Official Scores of the Judges:
95-95 Draw
96-94
97-93 for the Majority Decision Winner: Jeff ''Left Hook'' Lacy.

Jeff admits that he took Mendoza down on purpose when he was hurt in round 8! I'm glad I gave Mendoza the 10/8 but as Jeff agrees, you do what you have to in order to survive. You use your experience. It's a tactic. Teddy forced him to answer and Jeff was honest about it. I didn't see that one coming. Good job Teddy. Jeff, well you did what you had to do. Then again...maybe Jeff's full of crap. Who knows? Great fight. Many in the audience seemed to think Mendoza won it. Crowd's understand more of what gives them big reactions then they do the points system though.

BE's bottom line: These guys were very evenly matched but definitely different kinds of fighters. Lacy's average punch was so much more authoritative in all the combined rounds than Mendoza's. Mendoza could hurt him with the odd big punch that he chose to commit to and occasionally decided to commit to throwing more than one and two in a row. If he had done it more often, he may've won by knockout. Both guys fought very well and gave an exciting back and forth match. Lacy did get hurt more and is likely disappointed by this but he was in against a guy who can muster up knockout power in one punch when he tries. Also, Mendoza is a naturally and significantly bigger man. Again, a great, great fight that could've gone either way and it couldn't hurt to see a rematch.