Spinks talks Golovkin-Jacobs & Spence-Brook

By Boxing News - 12/19/2016 - Comments

Image: Spinks talks Golovkin-Jacobs & Spence-Brook

By Eric Baldwin: Former two division world champion Cory Spinks says WBA ‘regular’ champion Danny Jacobs has no chance of beating IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin for their fight on March 18 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Spinks thinks Golovkin is just too strong for him right now for him to be able to survive.

Spinks says that for Jacobs to have any chance at all of beating Golovkin, he’ll need to fight the perfect fight, make no mistakes, and he’ll need to be able to take a lot of heavy shots. Spinks says that Jacobs is going to get hit by Golovkin.

There’s no way to avoid that reality from occurring. It will require that Jacobs be able to take the power of Golovkin long enough for him to get the win, and he doubts he’ll be able to do that.

Spinks said to Dontae’s Boxing Nation:

When asked if Danny Jacobs will beat Golovkin, Spinks said, “No. I’m not taking nothing away from Danny. If he touches Danny, and he’s going to touch him. It depends on how Danny takes it. He [Golovkin] can be beat. Any man can be beat. Keep that monster off of you. You got to have tricks while you’re up in there too in close, because that’s where he wants you to be. No mistakes, a perfect game.”

Spinks also thinks that IBF junior middleweight champion Jermall Charlo shouldn’t rush into a fight against Golovkin straightaway when he moves up to middleweight. Charlo is talking about wanting to move up to 160 in the near future. Spinks thinks that Charlo shouldn’t go for the Golovkin fight right away, because he sees GGG as too strong for Jermall.

“Too early,” said Spinks about Jermall Charlo moving up to 160 and potentially fighting Golovkin right away. “He don’t want that problem. Too strong. The punches take a toll. It’s going to take a person like Andre Ward to beat him.”

Golovkin and Andre Ward likely won’t face each other anytime soon. Ward is at light heavyweight, and he doesn’t sound like he’s going to be fighting too much longer. You never know though. It’s possible that Ward and Golovkin could face each other in the future if Golovkin clears out the middleweight division, and if Ward is willing to come down to super middleweight to make the fight happen with Golovkin.

In commenting on who he believes is the best fighter in the welterweight division, Spinks said, “Errol Spence. He’s got something special about him. I’m not taking away from the other champions. Errol Spence seems like he’s been very, very seasoned. He went to the Olympics. He doesn’t have a lot of experience. A lot of the other champions have pro experience. I look at Errol Spence, and he’s handling it with no problems,” said Spinks.

Spence is still trying to get a fight against IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook, who is coming off of a knockout loss to Golovkin last September. At first, Brook appeared to be willing to fight Spence. Brook and his promoter Eddie Hearn spoke of not wanting to vacate his IBF title. But now it’s starting to look like Brook might wind up fighting Amir Khan next. We’ll have to see if that fight takes place of not. If it does, then Brook will need to vacate his IBF 147lb title, because this is not a unification fight.

Khan isn’t one of the champions and he’s not ranked ahead of Spence Jr. in the International Boxing Federation’s rankings. Brook could give Spence a step aside fee. He might take it if it’s enough money, but I don’t know if Brook will do that. He might just vacate.

It would be safer for him to do so. Once Brook gives up his IBF title, then he wouldn’t have to worry about Spence anymore. After Brook gets down with the Khan fight, then he could try and get fights against WBO champion Manny Pacquiao or the winner of the Danny Garcia vs. Keith Thurman fight. Depending on how Brook does against Khan, his boxing stock will either go up or down. If it does up, then Brook would have an excellent chance of getting the winner of the Garcia-Thurman fight if not Pacquiao.

In speaking about why Kell Brook seems reluctant to take the fight against Spence, Spinks said, “I just think Kell Brook knows that youth is everything. This is a young man’s sport, and I think Kell don’t want to get gobbled up. That beating him took from Triple G might have took something out of him. You never come back the same from fighting a bigger person and taking a pounding like that. I think the damage is done a little. He didn’t get knocked out, but he got stopped. That plays with the mental regardless. It depends on who it is, but I think that took something out of him. To be in there with a guy, and you’re trying to stand there and take those shots. Come on, man. Don’t be crazy. This is the game of boxing. Preserve your body,” said Spinks.

Brook didn’t take a great deal of punishment against Golovkin in the fight. Brook and his trainer Dominic Ingle made sure of that. Brook was on his bike for most of the five-round fight. When Brook wasn’t on his bike, he was getting hit hard. In the 1st round, Brook was staggered by a left hook from Golovkin. Brook suffered a broken right eye socket in that round. Brook stayed on the move until the 5th round. He got hurt in that round from something Golovkin hit him with, and he stopped throwing punches after that.

Golovkin was landing at will with power shots until Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle threw in the towel to have the fight stopped. It’s a good thing the fight was stopped, because it was clear that Brook was going to get knocked out sooner or later. He wasn’t moving anymore, and he was just trying to make GGG miss with his shots. Brook was doing a good job, but Golovkin was throwing so many shots that he was still catching him with huge punches.