By Chris Williams: Daniel Jacobs doesn’t see anything special about middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, and he’s not afraid of him. According to Jacobs, Golovkin is just a “simple man” that can be hurt, and he plans on doing just that tonight when the two fight each other on HBO pay-per-view at Madison Square Garden in New York. Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) says he has some tricks up his sleeves that he’s going to introduce to Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) when he gets him inside the ring tonight.
Jacobs has studied Golovkin’s past fights backwards and forwards, and he’s seen a number of major flaws in his game that he intends on capitalizing on to hurt him. Jacobs says he could even stop the Kazakhstan fighter if he hurts him with one of his big shots. Jacobs would be doing what he did to Peter Quillin by going after Golovkin to take him out in lightning precision tonight.
“What do I see when I look into his eyes? A simple man, a man that can be hurt, a man that bleeds just like I bleed and be put in situations just like me,” said Jacobs to tmz.com about Golovkin. “Boxing is 80 percent mental. We have some tricks up our sleeves that will let me implicate my best attributes, which are my speed, my ring generalship, my IQ and most importantly my power,” said Jacobs.
Golovkin is a simple man with his fighting style and his wide open defense. Jacobs can take advantage of Golovkin’s flaws to beat him tonight. Golovkin is very slow of hand, and he doesn’t react well when punches are thrown his way.
The blueprint is already there in how to beat Golovkin. Kell Brook used it well in their fight last September. The only problem that kept Brook from winning was a freak eye injury he suffered in the fight with him suffering a busted right eye socket in round 1. That came from Brook leaning forward at the wrong time just when Golovkin was throwing a left hook. It wasn’t powerful punch. It was just a case of Brook leaning forward at the wrong time. It could have happened to Golovkin if Brook threw a similar punch. It was just Brook’s bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when Golovkin threw the punch.
“It’s going to be a great fight,” said former junior middleweight champion Austin Trout to Fighthype.com about the Golovkin vs. Jacobs fight. “It’s going to be a test that Triple G swore he took over and over again. He’s never been tested like this. Danny punches hard as hell himself. I’m going with Danny. I’m putting money on Danny. I think the odds are stupid, but I think he’ll pull an upset. He does [have enough power to hurt Triple G]. Not only does he have enough power, but he’s going to have to get respect early. Basically, Triple G cuts the ring off real nice. So if he doesn’t stun him coming in, Triple G is going to walk him down and blast him,” said Trout.
Jacobs does have more than enough power to hurt Golovkin tonight. Brook hurt Golovkin with an uppercut in round 2 of their fight. Brook didn’t have the forward gear that Jacobs has to stay on Golovkin to finish him off smartly. If the same thing happens tonight with Jacobs hurting Golovkin with an uppercut, or any punch, he’s going to keep hitting him until either he goes down or the referee has to pull him off of him to stop the fight. There will be no turning back for Jacobs once he gets Golovkin hurt.
It’ll be an all or nothing situation where Jacobs is going to let everything he has go right then and there. If Golovkin can survive the onslaught, then so be it. You’ll have to give Golovkin respect for taking Jacobs’ flurry and surviving, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to win the fight. Golovkin won’t be the same fighter after Jacobs hurts him for the first time. Golovkin won’t be able to come back like he did against Brook after being hurt in the 2nd round, because Jacobs is too big, too strong and too mentally strong for him to let Triple G off the hook in the subsequent rounds of the fight.
Brook made two mistakes against Golovkin. His first was to not chase after him to finish him off once he hurt him with an uppercut. The second mistake Brook made was not ramping up his offense at the start of round 3. Brook let Golovkin start quickly in the 3rd round by letting him land some big shots. Those punches wouldn’t have landed if Brook had thrown his combinations like he’d done in the previous round. Golovkin stops throwing punches when he’s attacked, and Brook should have kept hitting him until he fell apart.
Jacobs will have the weight advantage tonight, and it could be 10 lbs. Jacobs weighed in at 176 pounds this morning, according to Victor Conte. He thinks he’ll be around 180lbs tonight. Golovkin weighed 169 this morning. That means Jacobs will be 10-11 pounds heavier than Golovkin. That’s a lot of weight for the middleweight division. It’s not a lot of weight for heavyweight, but for the middleweight division, it’s quite a bit of weight. Jacobs may win with his weight advantage along. But when you throw in Jacobs’ superior hand speed, size, mobility and talent, it’s going to be really tough on Golovkin tonight. The combination of power and speed that Jacobs has is going to make him hard to beat.