Can Reid Reap What He Sowed?
| It was a rainy Glasgow night and we had yet to witness the most stunning demise of the evening: that of Mike Tyson, who would lace the air with a vile torrent of bizarre ramblings including his impromptu homage to Liston and Dempsey, followed by violent threats of the darkest deviance |  |
before praising the Mighty Allah. One felt bewilderment, disgust and sadness enough to eclipse the raging frustrations borne from Robin Reid’s super middleweight fight earlier in the evening. Reid faced a sizable threat in the form of Italy’s Silvio Branco, but the menace of Reid’s mental demons unleashed the greatest harm on this night. Robin “The Grim Reaper†Reid: the man who destroyed Vincenzo Nardiello on his own territory to return proud to England as its newest glamour champion with model looks, granite fists and a taste for a fight. Reid’s own trainer Brian Hughes would eventually lament Reid as an inspiration for many young British fighters to dispense with skill to chance their hand at the smash and grab style.
The WBC super middleweight title was Reid’s and in defense of it, he laid out South African Giovanni Pretorius in style. No excuses were required after a hard night against Henry “The Yorkshire Hammer†Wharton, but glitches began to appear in the Reid machine. The system crashed against Thulane “Sugar Boy†Malinga, a fight in which he was there in body, not spirit. The despair was awesome while watching Reid grope at the night against Branco, who probably could not believe his luck en route to a decision win. However, luck is a significant element in Reid’s story, one due to turn in his favor.
Consolation is about as redundant an offering as you could give to Reid, having departed fights with undefeated champions Joe Calzaghe and Sven Ottke sure that he had done enough to win, and not alone in that assumption either. Between these “legitimate†championship occasions, Reid trudged through the boxing wilderness, defending unrecognizable titles against mediocre opposition. He was officially a support act, but that is not a position he will suffer for much longer. Reid has another chance, a last chance you might say. Great news? Well, not exactly. To become a world champion once more, Reid must go through America’s Jeff Lacy. Ouch!
Over the last several years, the super middleweight division has been bereft of a unified champion. Fighters such as Ottke, Calzaghe and Markus Beyer snatched their portion of the fragmented championship and disappeared to their respective corners of the globe. If there is a fighter considered capable of ending this stalemate, it might be Lacy. With only nineteen fights to his credit, Lacy has already made two defenses of the IBF title and at twenty-eight, he is ripening into an exciting commodity in the middleweight divisions.
Though full of enthusiasm to make his mark, Lacy is powerful but fundamentally flawed. Whether Reid capitalizes on the champion’s shortcomings depends on which Reid shows up to fight on the night. It is not ridiculous to imagine an older and much more experienced Reid imposing himself on the younger man, dragging him into the fight that some contend should have brought Reid the unified WBO/IBF/WBA championships by now. There is that warrior spirit that lives inside Reid, but it can be quelled enough to force a retreat back into himself as in his performance against Branco. Whether Reid’s confidence implodes or not, he represents a risky assignment for Lacy having never been stopped throughout his entire professional career.
The glamour days are over, but on August 6, Reid chances a return to the championship territory many feel was stolen from under his feet while Lacy receives the chance to prove that the he belongs on that same territory.Defeat is an almost irreconcilable prospect for both fighters, but victory for either states them as a force in the super middleweight division; perhaps even with a chance to become the definitive 168-pound fighter in the world.
Contact Jim Cawkwell at jimcawkwell@yahoo.co.uk