By J Caldwell: On March 18, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, (a self-profess big bear of the middleweight division) will be defending his titles (WBC, WBA, IBF, IBO) o HBO pay-per-view at the Madison Square Garden against what appears to be his toughest opponent yet: Daniel “The Miracle Man” Jacobs, (32-1, 29 KO’s) current WBA Middleweight Champion, (a native New Yorker who has the heart of a lion) is set to do battle in his own backyard.
GGG, (36-0, 33 KO’s) who trains out of Big Bear, California, seems up for the challenge. “I love fighting at Madison Square Garden, it feels like my second home”, said Golovkin. “Danny is a great fighter, one of the best middleweights and a big test for me. I look forward to another ‘Big Drama Show’ in New York City.”
The problem with this fight by most fans standards is this: Just why couldn’t it have happened sooner? The reasoning behind this logic is very simple: These are the kind of fights he [Golovkin] needs to prove to the loyal die-hard fan base outside of his own that he deserves to be rightfully crowned “The Next King of Boxing”—a title casual fans have already seemed to have given the native Kazakhstan banger. Their reasoning is also quite simple: GGG, (the big grizzly bear that he has become at 160) has all but mauled his last 23 opponents to death. It goes without saying, wherever there’s a high KO ratio (which for GGG stands at an impressive 92%), you should find a whole slew of casual fans waiting for his next victim.
On the other side of the fan spectrum, however, many die-hards (i.e., current fighters, former fighters, trainers, gym rats, writers, broadcasters, and your everyday lover of all things boxing) have all but cried foul play, screaming at Golovkin’s lackluster opposition as the key to his success. Do die-hards have a point; or is GGG just that good?
Make no mistake about it, we’ll soon get the answers to both questions in NYC on the night of March 18th, 2017—as the fight between a big cat in Danny Jacobs doesn’t appear to be some kind of catwalk in Central Park. The bad news on this night for a Golovkin loyalist fan base (which appears to be growing each KO) is this: Danny Jacobs will be coming off one of the biggest upset in boxing with an impressive beat-down of Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin, (which occurred a little over a year ago); he has great lateral movement; his hands are pretty quick and he’s a big puncher himself (with a fairly decent KO ratio of 88%); most importantly, he’s arguably one of the most fearless fighters in all of boxing. (The last accolade is in reference to the Brooklyn native doing battle with cancer and coming out victorious); hence the title “The Miracle Man.” His only short-coming, however, appears to be a suspect chin.
So who should win? Who really knows! In one corner you have a fighter with the heart of a lion king who’ll be fighting on his home turf, and in the opposite corner you have a fighter with the temperament of big bad brown bear on a mission of seek and conquer. A better question is, “Who would win a battle between a lion and a grizzly bear?” As we all know there’s too many intangibles in the wild to accurately debate such an issue; nevertheless, what isn’t predispose to conjecture between two of boxing’s apex predators is this: This is the first time that we as die-hard boxing fans don’t absolutely know that Golovkin will win this fight; this is a very tough competitive fight for GGG, and it would not come as a complete shock at all if he wasn’t victorious.