By Allan Fox: The recently retired former two division world champion Paulie Malignaggi says that Daniel Jacobs should mix it up with middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin this Saturday night in their fight on HBO pay-per-view. Malignaggi sees the best way for Jacobs to beat Golovkin is to start quickly and brawl with him the same way that Kell Brook did last September. Brook had a lot of success when he throwing combinations in round 2.
When Brook was letting his hands go with mini-flurries, he was able to hit Golovkin repeatedly and shut him down. Malignaggi thinks Jacobs could do the same thing and find success on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Malignaggi thinks the worst thing you can do against Golovkin is act scared of him, and not fight back. He says you need to be vicious inside the ring with Golovkin so that you can react by hitting Golovkin back each time he hits you. Malignaggi sees a lot of Golovkin’s opponents as having given up o their fear before they enter the ring with him. Brook didn’t give in to his feet. He was still stopped, but only because of an eye injury. Without the injury, he might have stayed in there and kept firing off big shots the entire fight.
“It’s hard to pick against Triple G, but Daniel Jacobs is a kid that had fought and beat bigger things than Golovkin,” said Malignaggi to Behind the Gloves. “When the bell rings on Saturday night, Daniel can go in there and not fear Golovkin. A lot of people fear Golovkin before they go into the ring, and then they feel the power, they just kind of lose their minds. If you go in there without fear, if you don’t have fear what it will do, it’ll make you react. It’ll make you react like a vicious person, and hit him back and want to hit him back. When a person goes into the ring with fear, once they get hit, they don’t react viciously. They’re always scared. So the punches kind of remind them for why they should be scared. If you don’t have that fear, you’ll react viciously when hit. The killer instinct will take over. You’ll want to react viciously, and put an opponent on your opponent as opposed to letting that fear conquer you and saying ‘I’m done.’” said Malignaggi.
If Jacobs can stand and fight Golovkin, he’ll have a chance like he did in his win over Peter Quillin. Jacobs never let Quillin get his own offense started in that fight. Jacobs went right after Quillin and blasted him out in the opening minute of the fight. In contrast, when Jacobs fought Dmitri Pirog, he ran from him and was knocked out in round 5. Jacobs fought Pirog in a much different manner than he did against Quillin.
“Golovkin is the favorite. Jacobs has the skills to stylistically match up well with him,” said Malignaggi. “He’s an athletic kid. He’s a kid with a lot of hand speed. Kell Brook showed what hand speed and athleticism can do to Golovkin. He was physically smaller, but he showed what he can do. People tell us all the time that Golovkin didn’t care getting hit by Brook. He didn’t mind because he was the smaller guy. I’ve seen Golovkin in many fights in his career. He’s not going to start moving his head on Saturday night. He’s never moved his head. He’s a good boxer. He’s got great fundamentals and he knows how to setup his power off those fundamentals terrifically. He’s a complete fighter. He’s won a silver medal in the Olympics. You don’t win a silver medal if you can’t fight. At the same time there’s a defensive flaw that Golovkin has that will stay. They’re not going to suddenly show themselves on Saturday night. Jacobs has the power to hurt a lot of middleweights. Me personally, I predict a firefight. I predict a shootout. I predict a shootout because I don’t think you can sit back and box Golovkin on your back foot for 12 rounds because Golovkin is too good. He’s not going to let you do that. He’s going to cut the ring off and he will get to you. The thing with Golovkin is you do what Brook did. You come out firing. You come out with your guns smoking, and you try to smoke him before he tries to smoke you. In a fire fight, if you’re big enough and strong enough, maybe Jacobs is, we don’t know, maybe you’ll get your shot. We’ll see Saturday night. I think it’ll be a shootout, fire fight. I think Hagler-Hearn,” said Malignaggi.
Malignaggi’s advice to Jacobs is sound advice. The only thing that Malignaggi seems to be overlooking is explaining why Golovkin wins his fights. According to Malignaggi, Golovkin wins his fights because his opponents are scared. Malignaggi doesn’t give Golovkin credit for him going after his opponents, forcing them to brawl, and hitting them very hard with power that they’re obviously not able to handle. It’s not fear that is allowing Golovkin to knockout everyone. He’s knocking them out because he’s hitting them very hard over and over again.
Golovkin is also getting knockouts because he’s forcing the action in a way that leaves his opponents no choice but to go to war with him. A lot of fighters don’t like to fight the way Golovkin does, because it means you get hit a lot while you’re to score a knockout. Golovkin does mind. He wants to entertain the boxing public, and he’s willing to get hit just so he can put himself in the best position to score a crowd-pleasing knockout. Malignaggi has things twisted in his head with his belief that Golovkin wins because of his fear only. Malignaggi is not giving Golovkin credit for the things he’s doing to score the knockouts, and he’s not giving him credit for the power that he possesses.
Whether Jacobs wants to follow Malignaggi’s advice in going after Golovkin to turn the fight into a brawl, he’s not going to have a choice. Golovkin will force Jacobs to brawl with him sooner or later. If Jacobs can handle it, he might win. If he can’t, then he’ll lose and probably get knocked out in the process. It’s obviously not good news that Jacobs has been stopped in the past when hit hard by a lesser puncher than Golovkin. It’s not a good sign that Jacobs was knocked down and badly hurt by Sergio Mora just three fights ago.
“This guy is the most skilled mentally,” said Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez to Maxboxing.com about Jacobs. “I think he’s got a great boxing IQ. There’s no fear in him. We’re very aware of the resolve he has, but he still has to face Gennady Golovkin on March 18,” said Sanchez.
Speaking about Golovkin, Sanchez said, “Maybe one day he’ll be the face of boxing. I think he’s going to be self-motivated, but he trains for 12 rounds. If Jacobs goes 12 rounds with Gennady, that says a lot about Jacobs,” said Sanchez.
Golovkin will need to beat Jacobs and Saul Canelo Alvarez for him to become the fact of boxing. If Golovkin can get the fight with Canelo in September, and become the first fighter to knock him out, it would be a huge step in becoming the new face in boxing.
