By Jeff Aranow: Danny Jacobs freely admits that he’s the underdog against the unbeaten IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin for their fight in one month from now on March 18 at Madison Square Garden in New York. However, Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) only considers himself an underdog in the fight because of Golovkin being on top as a world champion for seven years since 2010.
Jacobs has only been the WBA champion since 2014, and he beat a vulnerable fighter in Jarrod Fletcher to win the vacant strap. Jacobs points out that throughout the history of boxing, underdogs have frequently beaten the favorite, and he feels that he’s going to be doing the same thing against the 34-year-old Golovkin.
Jacobs seems to be fine with being an underdog, but one gets the sense that he’s bothered that the boxing fans put him in that position. Since the fight with Golovkin was signed, Jacobs has said that he plans on proving the boxing public wrong by him going out and shocking the world against Triple G in their fight on HBO pay-per-view.
Jacobs wouldn’t be seen as the underdog if he had a better resume of quality fighters. The only good opponent that Jacobs has beaten during his career was Peter Quillin. The rest of the fighters on Jacobs’ resume don’t have the solid background for him to have proven anything by beating them.
“No, I’m not sparring Andre Ward at all, because his style isn’t like Triple G,” said Jacobs to Fighthype.com. “I work with guys with Triple G’s style that does things like he does inside the ring. I would consider myself the underdog. I would definitely consider myself the underdog, because he’s been at the top longer than I have. He has the belts to back it up. It’s no problem and no issue taking the underdog position,” said Jacobs.
Jacobs isn’t just the underdog due to Golovkin having the titles and being a world champion longer than him. Golovkin would likely be the favorite even if he were just the challenger in the fight. Golovkin looks like the more talented fighter of the two, and he has the superior punching power and the better chin. The outcome of the Golovkin-Jacobs fight could be decided on which of the two fighters has the ability to take shots better.
Since Golovkin has never been knocked out or even knocked down during his 10-year pro career, it means that Jacobs is going to need to do his best to try and not get hit. If he can’t knock Golovkin out, then he’s going to have to use his boxing skills to try and out-box him. If Jacobs gets caught in a futile battle to try and score a knockout against Triple G, he could be the one that winds up getting knocked out.
“So many underdogs have prevailed throughout the history of boxing,” said Jacobs. “So for me to take the position and take it with pride, I consider myself the underdog. I just came back around. I just got my feet wet. It’s not to say I can’t accomplish those things and prove people wrong, and let people know I’m the best middleweight in the world,” said Jacobs.
If Jacobs can beat Golovkin, it would put him in position to face the winner of the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. fight. Golovkin doesn’t have a rematch clause in his contract with Jacobs. That means we’re likely to see Jacobs’ manager Al Haymon trying to put together a fight against the winner of the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight because the money to make in that fight would be huge for Jacobs.
Jacobs is probably going to use the same circular movement against Golovkin that he used in his fight against Dmitri Pirog in 2010. It didn’t work in that fight for Jacobs, and I don’t see it working for him against GGG. Golovkin is too good at cutting off the ring, and he’s going to be looking to force Jacobs into exchanges as much as possible.