By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Abel Sanchez views Daniel Jacobs as a more dangerous foe for Gennady Golovkin than Saul Canelo Alvarez. When it comes to punching power, Sanchez rates Jacobs as the bigger puncher than Canelo, who he sees as just a flashy puncher that throws combinations. What this means is that the real test to determine whether Golovkin is the best fighter in the 160 lb. division will be determined this Saturday night when he faces Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Many boxing fans already see Golovkin as the best in the 160 lb. division, but if he beats Jacobs on Saturday, it will be pretty much academic at that point. A subsequent fight between Golovkin and Canelo could be anti-climactic, and little more than just a “business fight,” as Golovkin likes to call fights that aren’t really sporting events. If this is as good as it gets for Golovkin, then there’s really no point in him fighting Canelo Alvarez. Golovkin should focus on fighting the best. He might need to move up to 168 after he beats Jacobs and Billy Joe Saunders because there won’t be much else for him to achieve in the middleweight division. Canelo seems more interested in facing guys he has an edge against rather guys that could potentially beat him. Why else would you explain Canelo not fighting Jermall Charlo and Demetrius Andrade at 154. Instead of fighting them, Canelo fought Liam Smith and Amir Khan in 2016.
“I think that Jacobs has got one-punch power. I think that if he hits you with a good shot, he will knock you out,” Sanchez to cbssports.com said. “He’s a big dude. I don’t think Canelo is the puncher that Jacobs is. He’s more of a combination puncher or a flashy puncher. But both are very good fighters.”
The area where Canelo appears to be superior to Jacobs is in the chin department. Canelo has never been rocked before during his pro. You can argue that Canelo hasn’t really faced a true puncher that weighed as much as him. Canelo’s fight in the past have come against a past his best James Kirkland, Cotto, and non-punchers like Erislandy Lara, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Amir Khan and Austin Trout.
Canelo has a reputation for being a big puncher, but if you look at the knockouts he’s scored in the past, they usually came from an accumulation of blows, and rarely have the knockouts come early in his fights. If Canelo was truly a big puncher, he’d had a lot more one punch knockouts, and he would have a ton of early knockouts in the first 2 or 3 rounds. It took Canelo 6 rounds to knockout Amir Khan, the same fighter that was knocked out in 1 round by lightweight Bredis Prescott in 2008 and in 4 rounds by Danny Garcia in 2012.
Golovkin still needs to prove himself against Canelo in the eyes of many casual boxing fans, because they follow the Mexican star closely, and purchase his fights in high numbers on HBO PPV, even though he’s not fought anyone truly good since 2015 when he edged Miguel Cotto by a 12 round decision.