By Dan Ambrose: IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) weighed in at 165.1 pounds on Saturday for the World Boxing Council’s mandated 30-day weigh-in for his March 18 fight against Daniel Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) at Madison Square Garden in New York. Jacobs weighed in almost 10 pounds heavier at 174.8 lbs. The WBC’s limit for the check weight was 176 lbs.
Golovkin usually rehydrates to around 170 lbs. on the night of his fights. I can’t see him deviating from this practice.
Golovkin was likely weighed in by the WBC after one of his workouts rather than before. He’s definitely not going to be weighing less than 170 with a month to go before the fight.
We’re probably going to see Jacobs with at least a 10 lb. weight advantage over Golovkin next month when the two of them face each other on HBO pay-per-view on March 18. However, this doesn’t mean that Jacobs will win. He also looked like the bigger guy when he fought Dmitri Pirog in 2010, and he was knocked unconscious by him in round 5.
The quality of Jacobs’ opposition has been less than stellar since that loss. Jacobs has only fought one good fighter in Peter Quillin during the last 7 years of his boxing career, and even that wasn’t a really good fighter. There are a lot of unknowns about Jacobs, as there is with Triple. Neither fighter has fought the type of high caliber opposition that would tell us anything about how they’ll do when they get inside the ring. In Golovkin’s case, he at least has been trying to get the good fighters like Saul Canelo Alvarez to face him, but he’s no luck.
Jacobs can’t afford to let his weight get too high for the fight. You don’t want to see Jacobs draining down from 180 lbs. during the week of the fight to get to the 160 pound limit for the Golovkin fight. Jacobs’ 174.8 lbs. suggest that he might be even heavier than that. Jacobs probably had to drain down to make sure that he didn’t come in over the 176 lb. limit for the WBC’s 30-day weigh-in.
It’s possible that Jacobs and his trainer Andre Rozier are going to try and use weight to beat Golovkin on March 18. I don’t think it’ll if that’s the plan. Golovkin reportedly spars with light heavyweights and cruiserweights at times and gives them a lot of problems.
Jacobs should be working on his speed and mobility more than anything. If Jacobs is going to try and beat Goloivkin at his own game by slugging with him, then he’s probably not going to last more than one or two rounds. When you’re getting knocked down in the 1st round by light punchers like former WBA 154 lb. champion Sergio Mora the way Jacobs was in their first fight, it tells you that he can’t take a punch every well.
“Both GGG boxing and Daniel Jacobs are under the 176 lbs. weight limit for the WBC mandatory 30 day weight in,” said Dan Rafael on his Twitter.
Jacobs has his work cut out for him in this fight. He wants to win, but his chin problem may sink his chances against Golovkin. Jacobs has good boxing skills, but he’s never been the type of guy that has had to use his skills. He’s always coming forward looking to knockout his opponents.
For Jacobs to have to retool his game to be more of a boxer, I don’t know if it’s possible for him to make that change and still fight at a high enough level to be a world class fighter like Golovkin. Jacobs making a change to his fighting style is something that he should have tried out years ago. It’s like him changing southpaw and deciding to fight that way the entire fight against Golovkin. Jacobs isn’t going to beat a fighter like Golovkin using an experimental fighting style that he hasn’t employed in the past. We already know that Jacobs probably won’t last long against Golovkin if he tries to slug with him. At best, Jacobs might last two rounds if he goes straight at Golovkin. The shots that other fighters were able to take for five to seven rounds, I don’t think Jacobs would be able to handle. He gets hurt too easy.
“You know who would knock Gennady Golovkin out? Carlos Monzon,” said Buddy McGirt to IFL TV. “He didn’t get the recognition, but Carlos Monzon was a bad man. Benny Briscoe would have beat Triple G,” said McGirt.
McGirt then spoke about the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight, saying “That would be a good fight. To me, that’s a pick em fight. I think Canelo should come from junior middleweight to fight Triple G. That’s the difference today; they want a guy to come in two pounds [under the weight limit for the division]. It takes the fun out of the sport.”
Canelo wouldn’t be coming up from 154 to fight Golovkin. He’d be coming down from 164 ½ lbs. to fight him.
The catch-weight fights seem to have become the norm for some fighters. Canelo has used the catch-weights a great deal since 2013. Miguel Cotto is another fighter that uses catch-weights.
If Canelo faces Golovkin, it’s supposed to be at the full weight for the 160 lb. divisions instead of at a catch-weights.
Speaking about the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. fight on May 6, McGirt said, “I think he [Canelo] beats him. At that weight, no one beats Canelo.”