By Jim Dower: The best super middleweight on the Joe Calzaghe vs. Roy Jones Jr. card on Saturday night may have not been Joe Calzaghe, but rather the young, 21 year-old unbeaten Daniel Jacobs (12-0, 11 KOs) who destroyed Jimmy Campbell (11-3, 8 KOs) in the 3rd round of a scheduled six-round bout at the Madison Square Garden, in New York City, New York. Jacobs, a former U.S amateur star, dropped Campbell with a hard right hand in the 3rd round.
He made it up badly hurt, and was met with a blistering flurry of shots from Jacobs, ending with the referee stepping in and halting the bout at 2:59 of the 3rd round. For Jacobs, it was his 11th knockout in 12 fights, with 10 of them coming in three rounds or less. Jacobs, a United States Amateur middleweight champion, is the real deal, with explosive power in either hand and who punches with as much power to the body as he does to the head.
At this point, he’s still working his way up against relatively soft opposition but his power is very real, and will make him an immediate threat to all of the top super middleweights once his management team is ready to put him in with better fighters. He’s not a high volume puncher like Calzaghe, but then again, with power like Jacobs, he doesn’t need to hit his opponent very often without hurting them badly and taking them out.
His chin is still a question mark given the fact that almost all of his opponents have been light punchers, but we’ll soon see how good it is in the future when they start putting him in with better fighters. As bad as Roy Jones Jr. looked against Calzaghe on Saturday night, it’s too bad that Jacobs wasn’t in the ring with Calzaghe instead of Jones, because Jacobs would have done a much better job, and who knows?
He may be been able stop the Welsh star if he could put his hands on him more than a handful of times. With Jacobs’ immense power, it wouldn’t take much for him to take him out with a big shot or two. So far, Jacobs has been matched up with opponents like Campbell, who tend to stand directly in front of him trying to trade shots.
Once Jacobs starts moving up, he’ll start seeing fighters that box much better and will no doubt be running from him, trying to frustrate, tire out, and take advantage of his lack of late round experience. Most of Jacobs fights, so far, have ended in the first round. However, sooner or later, he’s going to be taken deep by a clever boxer, and when that time comes, we’ll see if he has the stuff needed to be a champion or if he ends up being a one-dimensional slugger like many other hard-punching knockout fighters.
Boxing fans can expect to see more of him in the future, because he fights for Golden Boy Promotions and because of that, he’s going to get a lot of continued visibility on future Golden Boy fight cards.
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