By Allan Fox: Daniel Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) says he’s totally focused to beat Gennady “GGG” Golovkin on Saturday night to become the undisputed middleweight champion. Jacobs says he’s mentally and physically ready for this match. He’s trained hard in Hayward, California with his trainer Andre Rozier.
Jacobs isn’t saying if trainer Virgil Hunter has played a role in coming up with the game to defeat Triple G. Hunter does have a lot to say on how Jacobs should go about defeating the 34-year-old Golovkin. You have to believe that Hunter has given Rozier and Jacobs all of his ideas in how to stifle Golovkin’s offense to limit how many punches he throws in the fight.
“I hope Daniel is ready. I hope Daniel had his best training camp,” said Golovkin at Monday’s final press conference for his fight against Jacobs. “It’s just a couple of days before a drama show. I promise we’ll bring an amazing show,” said Golovkin.
Golovkin will be battling Jacobs this Saturday night in their World Boxing Association middleweight fight on HBO pay-per-view at Madison Square Garden. A large audience will be seeing the fight live. It’s a great match-up between two of the best fighters in the middleweight division.
Jacobs doesn’t get the same attention as Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, but he might be a better fighter than him. The winner of the Golovkin-Jacobs fight will temporarily have bragging rights as the best fighter in the 160 lb. division. They’ll still need to face Canelo Alvarez to prove that they’re the No.1 overall fighter at middleweight, but until then, they can say they’re the number 1 guy.
Jacobs, 29, looked like he initially wanted to pounce on Golovkin when he was talking at the podium. Golovkin wasn’t talking any trash though. After a while, Jacobs looked calmer, as Golovkin was saying harmless stuff and not describing how he’s going to beat him on Saturday night.
“I have an opportunity to become the undisputed middleweight champion,” said Jacobs. “You guys don’t understand the mentality that I have. I’m so focused, and so ready. I want it,” said Jacobs about his desire to beat Golovkin.
Jacobs has been very open about all the different things he’s been doing in training camp to prepare for Golovkin. Jacobs has exhausted all the possible things he can do to prepare for Golovkin. If Jacobs still loses to Golovkin on Saturday, it won’t be for lack of preparation. Jacobs has everything covered in preparing for the fight. Of course, that doesn’t mean that he’s going to win.
The fight could come down to Golovkin simply having too much punching , too much talent and too good of a chin for a fighter like Jacobs to beat him. One thing that hurts Jacobs’ chances of beating Golovkin is his lack of quality opposition he’s been facing in the last seven years. Jacobs has been largely spoon fed guys without a great deal of talent. Jacobs’ amateur career was nowhere near as good as Golovkin, and he’s only fought a small of decent level opposition since he turned pro.
In recent years, Jacobs has beaten Sergio Mora, Jarrod Fletcher, Peter Quillin, and Caleb Truax. Those guys are not in the same galaxy as Golovkin when it comes to overall talent. Jacobs’ resume has been built on a wins over mediocre opposition. That’s the whole problem. Jacobs seems like a good fighter, but we don’t know how good because he’s been very carefully matched since losing to Dmitri Pirog in 2010.
Jacobs was stopped in the 5th round in that fight. It was a disaster for Jacobs from the 1st round, because he did not look comfortable being punched back by Pirog. Before that fight, Jacobs was having an easy time beating up fighters like Juan Astorga, Jose Miguel Rodriguez Berrio, Ishe Smith, George Walton and Michael Walter. Ishe Smith staggered Jacobs at one point in the fight. That’s when it was first learned that Jacobs might not have the greatest chin.
“You have to have an athlete with the right attributes with the speed, punching ability, pedigree and experience like the Pirog loss, things that round him out mentally,” said Virgil Hunter to secondout.com. “Golovkin brings danger punching like he is. Jacobs punches very well also. If you get careless with him, he can hurt you. I have seen him punching. He does have a lot of power behind his punches. Adjustments are going to have to be made on both sides. It can be a typical Golovkin fight. It can turn out like that. In fairness to Jacobs, he brings a lot more than his past opponents. I don’t think he’ll put his hands down and let him hit him. That would definitely be foolish. The thing you have to pay attention to is he [Jacobs] can hit with more than one punch,” said Hunter.
I doubt that Golovkin will make a lot of adjustments. If Jacobs uses a lot of movement, then Golovkin will adjust to that by moving his feet quicker to cut off the ring on him. The only other adjustments that Golovkin might need to make are to deal with Jacobs potentially using a lot of holding to smother his offense. Golovkin would step back if Jacobs reaches for him to hold. That’s an easy adjustment that Golovkin can and will make if Jacobs goes the route of using excessive clinching to try and stall out Golovkin’s offense. Ideally, Jacobs won’t waste his time using a lot of holding in the fight, because he’ll only wind up tiring himself out if he tries that strategy.
Holding is not going to work against Golovkin, because he has a good inside game. Andre Ward, who Virgil Hunter trains, used a lot of clinching against Sergey Kovalev in their fight last November. However, Kovalev didn’t have a good inside game like Golovkin. Jacobs is not a great inside fighter. If he uses clinching to limit the amount of shots that Golovkin is able to get off, he’ll wind up getting hit with some hard body shots while doing his holding. I think it’ll backfire on Jacobs. You don’t like to see a fighter like Jacobs ruin his first and possibly his only big fight of his career by using a gimmick strategy like excessive holding to try and win the fight. Jacobs would be selling himself short if he chooses to hold all night long rather than fighting.
Speaking about Golovkin’s fight against Kell Brook, Hunter said, “It would have been interesting if he didn’t have that eye situation. I’m not saying he would have won. Brook had no idea how to defend himself on the ropes. None,” said Hunter.
“If a guy is good at cutting off the ring, you on the opposite side, have a strategy of laying traps for a guy that likes to cut the ring off. A guy that cuts the ring off likes to keep you in a certain place. That’s where you set traps for where they like to be. They have a plan to slow the pursuit, and be able to turn at the right time, and keep him down to one punch at a time. You have a good opportunity [to beat him]. Also, you’ve seen him get tired, for whatever reason, in rounds 5 and 6,” said Hunter about Golovkin. Nobody ever took advantage of that,” said Hunter.
I think setting traps won’t work for Jacobs, especially if he’s wearing himself out by moving around the ring a lot to avoid Golovkin’s attacks. Setting traps might work in the first two or three rounds before Jacobs starts to wear down from the pressure that Golovkin is putting on him. But if Jacobs hasn’t landing anything significant by the 3rd round, he’s likely to start to fade. He can set traps all he wants, but he’ll lack the power to hurt Golovkin with anything he lands. That’s why it’s better for Jacobs to just stand and fight Golovkin instead of using a lot of movement.
Golovkin didn’t look tired in round 5 in his last fight against Kell Brook. Hunter says that Golovkin gets tired in round 5 and 6. In the fights where Golovkin has looked tired in round 5 against Willie Monroe and Gabriel Rosado, those fighters stood and brawled with him for three minutes of those rounds. Golovkin got a little tired from slugging in back and forth wars. Neither of those fighters lasted long after the 5th. A bloody and battered Rosado was pulled out of the fight in round 7 against Golovkin. Monroe quit in the 6th after being knocked down by GGG.
When asked what strategy he would advise in how to beat him, Hunter said, “I’ll never tell my way. First of all, you’ve got to believe you can do it. You’ve got to go to camp believing you can do it. You’ve got to have the physical attributes, and he does have the physical attributes,” said Hunter about Jacobs. “He can punch, and he’s got speed. It just depends on the first two rounds,” said Hunter in talking about how Jacobs will do against Golovkin.