By Chris Williams: HBO Boxing will be televising the replay of the Gennady Golovkin vs. Daniel Jacobs and Roman Gonzalez vs. Srisaket Rungvisai tonight. The card will begin at 10pm ET/PT on HBO. This is the replay of last Saturday’s fight card on HBO pay-per-view, which saw Golovkin edge Jacobs by a 12 round unanimous decision, and Rungvisai send the previously undefeated “Chocolatito” Gonzalez (46-1, 38 KOs) down to defeat by a 12 round majority decision. Both fights were controversial unfortunately.
Many fans thought Jacobs should have won, and perhaps even more believed that Gonzalez deserved the ‘W’ in his fight with Rungvisai. When you have 2 controversial decisions in at the top of pay-per-view card, it’s a little unsettling. Gonzalez fought well, but two of the judges believed that Rungvisai’s harder punches were enough for him to be given the nod.
Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) came into the Jacobs fight last Saturday needing a spectacular victory to help his case in getting a badly wanted fight with Mexican boxing star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. While the 34-year-old Golovkin did get the victory by a 12 round unanimous decision, he failed to get a knockout of Jacobs, and his victory was not what you could call an impressive one. Golovkin did enough to get the decision over the 29-year-old Jacobs, but he didn’t beat him in a way that pleased many of the boxing fans that had been expecting another great win for the Kazakhstan fighter.
Jacobs muddied the waters a little after the fight, telling HBO “I thought I won the fight.” There were more than a few fans that also thought Jacobs won. After a bad start in the first 4 rounds, Jacobs came on strong from round 5 to win most of the last 8 rounds of the fight. Golovkin looked like he got tired, and didn’t have the energy or the hand speed to deal with Jacobs’ faster hands. Golovkin fought the wrong way against a guy with Jacobs’ style. Golovkin was pressuring Jacobs through most of the fight in the same way Dmitry Pirog had done in his win over Jacobs seven years earlier in 2010, but he wasn’t committing to his punches. Golovkin looked afraid of being countered. He wasn’t fearless like Pirog and decisive. Golovkin was thinking too much, and he didn’t look confident.
Golovkin blew his chance to placate some of the unhappy fans after the fight when he failed to say he would give Jacobs an immediate rematch. The fans that thought Golovkin deserved to lose would have liked to have heard him say he would give Jacobs another chance by fighting him right away in his next fight. Golovkin didn’t do that. He’s moving on to face WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders on June 10, and then maybe facing Canelo Alvarez in September.
Jacobs will need to wait for a rematch. The boxing fans likely won’t know the status of the Golovkin-Jacobs rematch until 2018, because that’s when Golovkin could be available to fight Jacobs. Fighting Saunders now is not the best move that Golovkin can make. When you’ve got unfinished business against Jacobs, it’s not a good look for Golovkin to move on and fight Saunders. The boxing public might prefer that Golovkin go back and prove that he’s the better fighter than Jacobs by fighting him a second time.
For the many boxing fans that chose not to purchase the Golovkin-Jacobs card last Saturday, they’ll get a chance to see for themselves what the controversy is all about by tuning in to see the fight tonight on HBO. The pay-per-view results from the Golovkin-Jacobs card were released by Yahoo last Friday and the fight generated 170,000 buys. That means a lot of people chose not to purchase the card. Tonight, the fans that didn’t get to see it will have the opportunity to watch it for themselves and make a decision in who they felt won the Golovkin-Jacobs and Gonzalez-Rungvisai fights. I personally believe Jacobs did enough to beat Golovkin by 3 rounds. I also thought Gonzalez was the better man in his fight with Rungvisai.
After tonight’s Golovkin-Jacobs & Gonzalez-Rungvisai replay, HBO Sports will be televising ‘2 Days: Vasyl Lomachenko. That starts at 12:00 AM ET/PT. This is a special that will highlight WBO super featherweight champion Lomachenko’s title defense against former WBA champion Jason Sosa on April 8 on HBO.