By Dan Ambrose: WBA World middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs (31-1, 28 KOs) will be fighting for the first time in 2016 on July 30 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The potential opponent that Jacobs will be facing on that date is 35-year-old Sergio “The Latin Snake” Mora (28-4-2, 9 KOs) if the fight can get made.
Jacobs already defeated Mora by a 3rd round stoppage last year in August 2015. Mora suffered a right ankle injury in the 3rd round and wasn’t able to continue fighting. Both fighters were down in the exciting 1st round of the bout. Jacobs began to dominate in the 2nd and by the 3rd, it looked like it was going to be only a matter of time before was stopped.
One troubling aspect about Jacobs fighting Mora is that he’s not ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies as of now. However, World Boxing Association president Gilberto Mendoza is aware that Jacobs wishes to fight Mora, and it doesn’t appear that he’ll be looking to block the fight for any reason. When you look at champions, it’s better for the sport when they take on contenders rather than fighters that aren’t ranked in the top 15. It’s better for the fans because they get to see more competitive fights.
Showtime Boxing will likely need to give their blessing on a second fight between Jacobs and Mora. Given the exciting 1st round of their previous fight, Showtime will likely not block a Jacobs-Mora fight, even though there are arguably much better opponents for Jacobs to fight than the aging Mora.
In the WBA’s top 15, Jacobs would likely have a much tougher time against #4 WBA Tureano Johnson, #8 WBA Avtandil Khurtsidze, #9 WBA Ryota Murata, #1 WBA Alfonso Blanco or #14 WBA Anthony Dirrell.
By Jacobs fighting Mora again, it’s the equivalent of a top NFL team looking to face a struggling bottom dweller in my view. Mora is a decent fighter, but he did lose to Jacobs by a 3rd round stoppage last August, and he hasn’t fought since then. Mora was also beaten twice by journeyman Bryan Vera in 2011 and 2012. Mora’s only wins in the last three years have come against Milton Nunez, Grzegorz Proksa, Samuel Rodgers, Dashon Johnson and Abraham Han.
Jacobs was interested in facing WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders in a unification fight. However, Saunders looks like he’s going to go in another directions towards a much bigger fight against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin.
For Jacobs, his next fight will be his last fight before he must face Golovkin. The WBA is letting Jacobs and Golovkin take one fight each before ordering a match between them later this year. While Golovkin is looking to fight a top guy in either Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or Billy Joe Saunders, it appears that Jacobs could go the opposite direction by facing an opponent that is older and not even ranked in the top 15.
It’s going to be interesting to see if Jacobs vacates his WBA title when he’s ordered to fight Golovkin. Jacobs is with Al Haymon, and we saw how Peter Quillin, another one of Haymon’s fighters, vacated his WBO middleweight title in 2014, when he was ordered to fight Matt Korobov.
Will Jacobs do the same thing in giving up his WBA title meekly when ordered to fight Golovkin? There are no doubts that Jacobs will destroy Mora in the rematch in July. The only question is will Jacobs agree to face Golovkin or will he give up his WBA to avoid the fight.
Showtime needs to put in an effort in making sure they’re televising quality match-ups on their network. When a champion like Jacobs is allowed to fight a 2nd tier fighter like Mora, I don’t think that makes for good television. Showtime needs to tell Jacobs and his management to go back to the drawing board and face someone a little more relevant like Tureano Johnson. That would be a fight where Jacobs would have a very real chance of losing if he couldn’t KO Johnson quickly. Jacobs’ chin has already been exposed in the past with him getting knocked out by Dmitry Pirog. Even the light hitting Mora had Jacobs on the canvas.