By Gerardo Granados: This Saturday at the Madison Square Garden, New York, a solid boxing card awaits for all proud fight fans for the Gennady Golovkin vs. Daniel Jacobs card. In the undercard there’s former WBC super flyweight champion Carlos Cuadras facing David Carmona. “El Principe” Cuadras should do an easy job and look impressive defeating Carmona. We also have pound for pound King, Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez making his first defense of his WBC super flyweight title, against mandatory challenger experienced former WBC super flyweight champion Wisaksil Wangek. Against Cuadras, Chocolatito had to dig deep to earn the decision and on his first defense attempt of his title, we could see if moving up to his fourth division has really affected his punching power.
In the main event, Gennady Golovkin will face a brave Daniel Jacobs, who after a long negotiation finally accepted to fight against one of today most feared fighters. The list is long, some wanted nothing with triple six, others called him out and then hide moving out of the middleweight division, a couple overpriced themselves, lost their pen and one just retired.
Golovkin has an impressive title fight streak of 17 knockout wins, 16 title defenses by knockout and only 3 out of 36 managed to see the last round against him. Back in February 2015, Martin Murray, a big middleweight managed to reach the eleventh round and on June 2010 Kassim Ouma reached the tenth round. This streak reminds me of boxing great Wilfredo Gomez.
Daniel Jacobs also has a solid knockout streak of 12, but it is fair to say that the Magic Man has defeated lesser opposition than the one Golovkin has obliterated. Being Peter Quillin his major pray to the date, but Quillin has never been the top man at 160. While Jacobs was knocked out a long time ago by Dimitri Pirog back in July 2010, Golovkin has never been down in any of his professional or amateur bouts.
The betting odds favor Gennady and I won’t dare to go against the odds when Golovkin fights. But hey Jacobs is a live underdog due to his hand speed and accurate punching power, I can see him out-boxing Gennady in the first three rounds but once Golovkin times him he will start to wear him down until he stops Jacobs in nine or ten rounds. The major problem for Jacobs might be that Golovkin isn’t a mere brawler, Gennady does know how to box and his impressive amateur record at times tends to be overlooked by fight fans.
Hopefully, this one could end in an epic battle as the one Marvin Hagler and Tommy Hearns had. But I honestly believe that both fighters will be cautious in the first rounds due that both men have more than enough power to hurt each other. I see them being defensively responsively using mostly their jab waiting for an opening before fully committing to attack. It is true that Kell Brook landed cleanly on Golovkin, but he also left himself open to be countered with heavy punches and that is not a mistake I see Jacobs making against a lion who has freakish knockout power in both hands.
To make a mistake against Golovkin, can cost to any boxer to be knocked out, Daniel better not drop his left hand because he could risk getting caught by a 666 over right hand. Jacobs better move and use his height and reach advantage to avoid getting cornered.
I doubt that the Ducks who in the past have avoided Golovkin will consider to fight him if he knocks Jacobs out or fully dominates him. But it is probable that if Jacobs puts up a competitive fight that goes to the score cards, that many of those Ducks will believe that Golovkin is now vulnerable and will consider to fight him. I am certain that this is a fight that no proud fight fan should miss.
I believe that the winner will make contenders hesitant to get inside the ring against him. I don’t believe this fight is going to the distance and neither that the fight judges could have a hard time scoring it.
But how about the reader, do you think it will go the distance?