House of Pain: Jeff "Left Hook" Lacy

Jeff Lacy strikes fear into the hearts of men. He has terrorized his weight class with a crushing left hook for 20 undefeated fights – 16 of them wins by knockout – and he has the hardware to prove it. We caught up with Jeff in his hometown of St. Petersburg, Fla., less than a week after he toppled IBO Super Middleweight champ Robin Reid by TKO to unite the IBF/IBO Super Middleweight championship belts. What we found in St. Pete was a town in love with their favorite son (we passed several people walking down the street in "Left Hook" Lacy t-shirts) and a hometown hero eager to love them back (following dinner at local spot The Wing House, Lacy went to his car to retrieve his belts to pose for photos with fans).

As he prepares for a probable bout with WBO Super Middleweight champ Joe Calzaghe in England this November, Left Hook gave us some insight into how he prepares for bouts, his quest to unite all of the belts in his division and what it feels like to knock out an opponent.

Everlast: Typically, how long do you take to recover after a big fight, and when do you start training again?
JL: Usually, I take the first week and just do absolutely nothing to let my body recover. The second week I start my running. Then the week after that, I’m back in the gym. Once I’m there, I tailor my training to whoever I’m fighting.

E: So you’ll be training a certain way to exploit Calzaghe’s weaknesses?
JL: That’s the name of the game – to find your opponent’s weakness and to exploit it. You can see it before, when you’re watching him fight, but you must be smart. Style makes fights. You have to know what to look for when you’re analyzing your opponent and you have to figure out how to best match your style to his to take advantage of his weakness.

E: What’s Calzaghe’s biggest weakness?
JL: Him being willing to fight me.

E: You seem like a really nice guy. But when you’re in the ring, you’re a killer.
JL: In the ring, I’m the total opposite of what you see right now. Right now I’m calm, cool, laid back, down to earth. But when it’s time to step in that ring? It all changes.

E: When do you make that transformation? Is it when you step in the ring? Is it in the dressing room before the fight? Is it during training?
JL: I’ll tell you what, I can feel it happening to me. It doesn’t happen all at once. It’s more of a gradual thing as fight night comes closer. It’s the focus. It’s the cutting of weight. It’s the sacrifice. It’s being caged in my house and the gym – where I’m not out and about with my friends and family - as it gets closer to the fight. It really switches about three weeks out when I head into training camp. I become a different person. Come fight day, it’s been weeks of me being caged, ready to go. During training camp I don’t like being around people, I don’t like answering questions, my toleration for everything is real low ... I have a very short fuse. I just want to be left alone. If you were trying to do this interview during training camp, it probably wouldn’t even happen. I’ve always been like that. I take boxing very seriously. I look at it like I’m preparing for a situation where this person across from me literally wants to hurt me, and I can never allow someone to hurt me.

E: You’re intense when you talk about your preparation.
JL: This is my life. To the fans, it’s a sport. It is definitely not a game to me. The thing about boxing is that this is all you. They put you in that squared circle and say, "Make us proud."

E: You beat Robin Reid in Tampa. What was it like to come back and fight in front of your hometown fans?
JL: It was very important for me to come back home to fight. When you fight all of your fights out on the road, you really don’t know what it’s like to be in front of your home fans. That Saturday night made me really sit back and thank God for allowing me to be in a position to come back home.

E: You’re a superstar now. How has your life changed?
JL: To be honest, my life really changed when the money came. The fame was almost secondary. I can remember the first time … You don’t realize how many times people come to you for money. They act like they’re the only ones asking you for something. And I’m trying to be a nice guy. The hardest part is learning to say no, because you do want to help people.

E: What boxers would you compare yourself to?
JL: If I had to compare myself to somebody? It would probably be a combination of two guys. I have the aggression of Mike Tyson and boxing skills, speed, heart and warrior mentality of Evander Holyfield.

E: You’ve also been likened in certain ways to Joe Frazier.
JL: I have heard that. And that’s great, obviously. You know what really hits me the most, though? I have a lot of older fans. These are guys who have seen all the great fights, they’ve seen all the great fighters. When they are like, “Man, I like the way you fight,” that just means so much more to me.

E: It seems like you and your friend Jermain Taylor are destined to fight some day. If you’re most like Frazier, he would take on the Muhammed Ali role…
JL: I really think it would be more like Hagler/Hearns, with Jermain as Tommy Hearns and me as Marvin Hagler. That would be a huge fight for the public down the road. We’ve talked about it since amateurs. I’m confident the fight would be great and I will be victorious. I’ll let my hands do the rest of the talking (laughs).

E: Seeing how you’ve interacted today with your fans, you seem like you’re a very accommodating star.
JL: Well it’s a great feeling to be wanted. One thing I don’t understand is guys who get famous and then don’t want to sign autographs. That’s never going to be me. You can’t ever allow yourself to think that you’re bigger than the sport. If that happens, you’ve made a bad turn somewhere.

E: It also seems like you’re supremely confident in your own boxing abilities.
JL: I am supremely confident. That’s because I erase all doubt going into a fight by my hard work and preparation. I never think about what can happen to me in the ring. I’m the one doing the damage. When I step into that ring, there is never a doubt in my mind that I’m going to win.

E: What’s your favorite thing about boxing?
JL: That it’s not a team sport. Actually, that’s what I love about boxing. I tried teams sports when I was younger, but just didn’t like them. If I’m in the greatest shape of my life and at the top of my game, we could still lose because the guy next to me has been drinking or he was out late the night before or whatever. There’s nothing I can do at that point. So with boxing, it’s all me. It’s just like, “Send me in there. I’ll be alright.”

E: Boxing-wise, how good can you be?
JL: When you say “how good,” there’s no cap to it, no ceiling. There’s no point where you can cut it off. How good is good? How good is great? As a boxer, you can’t put any kind of ceiling on yourself. In this game you’re only as good as your last fight.

E: Who’s the best fighter out there today?
JL: That’s a tough question because so many fighters are great at certain skills...

E: You can say yourself if you want to.
JL: (laughs) Well then I would probably say me. I feel like I’m the all-around package. I have the punching power, the charisma, the body. So yeah, I would say myself. People say I’m just a knockout artist or whatever. But the boxing part I can work on. The jab I can work on. The punching power is God-given though. You either have it or you don’t. And I have it.

E: You’ve knocked out plenty of guys in the ring, but have you ever been hurt?
JL:. Oh yeah. Of course. But I’ve been able to keep it together. I’ve learned from it. It’s like, “Yeah, you’re hurt, but you can weather this. You’re alright.” And knowing that I can end the fight with one punch always makes me feel better. Just make one mistake and I got you.

E: Talk about what it’s like to knock someone out. How does it feel?
JL: There’s nothing like it. I can feel the physical strength going away from that fighter. I can feel it going away every round. I can feel when a guy is punched out. I can feel when a guy has given his last Hail Mary. Once that happens, it’s time to end it. Good thing for me that I’m one of the best finishers in boxing.

E: You are such an aggressive fighter. Do you fight angry?
JL: I don’t fight angry. I fight smart. I play mind games. I’ll come out strong and then ease up to make them think I’m tired. Then they think they know something about me, they’ll think they have me. Then they’re right where I want them.

E: You really ease up on your punches to trick your opponents?
JL: Oh yeah. Listen, everyone wants to get the knockout, especially against a guy like me who’s undefeated and who is known for knocking people out. They can come in with the best game plan in the world, but the second they think they can knock me out they get sloppy…I wait for them to make that mistake. Sometimes I even fool their corner too. I hear them yell something about how I’m tired and it will change the way their guy fights. Like I said, just make that one mistake and I got you.

Words. Patrick Cassidy; Photo. Stephen Hill