WBO champion retains his super-middleweight belt but hurts his left hand, angering Jeff Lacy's camp.
By JOHN C. COTEY, Times Staff Writer
Published September 11, 2005
Joe Calzaghe is out.
Tampa might be in.
After a fight between St. Petersburg's Jeff Lacy and Joe Calzaghe fell apart Saturday night when Calzaghe hurt his left hand beating Denmark-based Kenyan Evans Ashira, promoter Gary Shaw said he will find a new opponent for his fighter and bring him back to the St. Pete Times Forum on Nov. 5.
Calzaghe's promoter, Frank Warren, agreed a November fight with Lacy is unlikely, telling the BBC: "I very much doubt that it is going to go on. He is never going to be ready for that so we'll try to rearrange it for next year. It is frustrating for Joe, but these things happen in boxing."
Shaw said he would begin looking for an opponent today, and will talk to Times Forum officials about holding the fight in Tampa. The Nov. 5 date is in the middle of a Lightning road trip and the day after a Bruce Springsteen concert.
The solution wasn't enough to keep Shaw from seething, however, at the collapse of the super-middleweight title fight between IBF champion Lacy and WBO belt-holder Calzaghe, who retained his title for the 17th time with a unanimous decision in Cardiff, Wales.
From Manny Pacquiao's locker room at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, where his newest fighter was warming up before a sixth-round TKO of Hector Velazquez, a furious Shaw struggled to keep his voice down.
"Truthfully, I'm very angry right now," he said. "I'm trying to keep it together and focus on Manny. But yes, I'm angry at Frank Warren, I'm angry at Joe Calzaghe."
The left-handed Welshman injured his hand in the fourth round as he tried to finish the contest early.
From then on, he was unable to throw the left and used mostly right jabs with the occasional right hook to win every round.
Judges Henk Adriannse and Paul Thomas scored the fight 120-108, and Renato Cario had it 120-107.
"I caught him with an uppercut. He's a short guy and I hit him on the top of the head a few times and, unfortunately, my left hand went in the fourth round," said Calzaghe, who stretched his unbeaten record to 40 fights. "So I knew from the fourth round onwards I couldn't land the left hand.
"I love to knock guys out, that's my game, but today I had to adjust and box with my jab. I would have knocked him out by the fifth or sixth round. But I had to jab my way to victory."
Shaw said Calzaghe's injury means he will have to fight Lacy in the United States if it happens sometime next year.
"We're not going over there," Shaw said. "Lacy is a true champion. He was willing to go over there and fight. But they disrespected him. They took a meaningless fight with a 160-pounder, and Calzaghe talked all along about how he was going to hurt himself. He should have never taken that fight to begin with. We knew he would use it as an opportunity to pull out of the fight."
Ashira's only other loss in 25 contests coming in was a second-round stoppage by New Zealand's Maselino Masoe for the lightly regarded WBA middleweight title in Miami last year.
On the undercard, 18-year-old Olympic silver medalist Amir Khan scored a lopsided 40-36 decision over journeyman Baz Carey in a four-round lightweight contest.
In Los Angeles, Pacquiao, 28, trapped Velazquez (42-11-2, 31 KOs) against the ropes three times in the sixth round, finally bringing him to his knees in the final second, during the scheduled 12-round super-featherweight bout. When the fight was stopped, Pacquiao (40-3-2, 31 KOs) was ahead 49-46, 48-47 and 49-46. The win increases the likelihood of a Pacquiao-Erik Morales rematch in January. Morales, 29, won an unanimous but close decision March 19. ... Hawaii's Brian Viloria (18-0, 12 KOs) knocked out Eric Ortiz (24-5-1, 16 KOs) in the first round to win the WBC light flyweight championship.
Information from the Associated Press was used in the report.
