By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA World middleweight champion Daniel “Miracle Man” Jacobs (32-2, 29 KOs) is being mentioned as a possible undercard fight on the September 16th Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) vs. Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) on HBO pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Jacobs’ adviser Al Haymon is reportedly in talks to have the 30-year-old New Yorker fight on the Canelo-Golovkin card against an opponent still to be determined. Having Jacobs on the undercard might pull in a few more PPV buys from the East Coast boxing fans in the U.S. It’s debatable how many fans Jacobs can pull, however, as he’s not a star. If Jacobs was a star, Golovkin-Jacobs would have brought in more than 170K PPV buys last March in their fight on HBO PPV.
Of course, having Jacobs fight a dangerous opponent like Jermall Charlo or David Lemieux could be a REAL game changer as far as increasing the amount of PPV buys the Canelo-Golovkin fight brings in. I don’t know if Jacobs’ manager Al Haymon would be interested in either of those opponents for him. Golden Boy would need to bless the idea of Lemieux fighting Jacobs. There’s already been talk of Lemieux fighting on the undercard of the Canelo vs. Golovkin card.
Lemieux is a potential future opponent for Canelo. It would be risky for Golden Boy to put Lemieux in with Jacobs, who Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez views as the 2nd best middleweight in the division right now. I agree that Jacobs is technically the second best middleweight. I rate Jermall Charlo as the better talent than Jacobs, but he still needs to earn his stripes at 160 before he can be moved past Jacobs. I think we’ll soon see Jermall surpass Jacobs. He’s the better talent in my opinion. Lemieux is also promoted by Eye of the Tiger Promotions.
Would they agree to have him fight Jacobs? I’d give Lemieux a BIG chance of beating Jacobs, who looked shaky each time he was hit hard by Golovkin. We didn’t even see Golovkin trying to sit on his shots in the Jacobs fight. Golovkin was mostly just jabbing and looking to win a decision instead of going out and trying to knock Jacobs out. It was a bizarre way for Golovkin to fight Jacobs, because he fought his fight by boxing him instead of trying to take his head off the way that Pirog did. Jacobs caved in quickly against Pirog in getting knocked out in the 5th.
Golovkin fought in the opposite way that Pirog did against Jacobs. Lemieux would be a very, very dangerous opponent for Jacobs. I don’ rate Jacobs’ chin as being better than Curtis Stevens’ chin, and we saw what Lemieux did to Stevens. Lemieux would be a real nightmare for Jacobs. Even if Jacobs chose to run like he did in the early going against Golovkin, Lemieux would catch up to him and nail him with one of his big left hooks to the head. I could see Lemieux knocking out Jacobs within 2 rounds. It would be a bad match-up for Jacobs. Lemieux would increase his value if he fought Jacobs and flattened him in 1 or 2 rounds. It would setup a big fight between Lemieux and the winner of the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight.
The big question is WHY Jacobs would on the undercard of that fight. If Golovkin’s promoters at K2 are interested in having Jacobs on the Canelo-Golovkin undercard, it would suggest that they want to setup a rematch between him and GGG. Jacobs lost to Golovkin by a 12 round unanimous decision on March 18th this year in a fight on HBO PPV at Madison Square Garden in New York.
I was a close fight, which was decided more or less by the 4th round knockdown that Golovkin scored. Jacobs has been complaining ever since the fight ended that he should have been the one that got his hand raised. The lead promoter for the Canelo-Golovkin card is Golden Boy Promotions, not K2. If Golden Boy wants Jacobs on the card, then it suggests that they’re interested in having him as a potential opponent for Canelo in the near future.
Golovkin hasn’t talked of wanting to fight Jacobs in his next fight after Canelo. Golovkin has spoken of wanting either a straight rematch with Canelo or a unification fight against World Boxing Organization middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders. Fighting Jacobs again would be a backwards move by Triple G. The fight wouldn’t likely generate a lot of PPV, as their previous contest last March brought in just 170,000 buys on HBO. The casual boxing fans didn’t seem at all interested in Golovkin-Jacobs fight.
Golovkin is better off fighting Saunders and/or facing Canelo again. Golovkin beat Jacobs by the scores 114-113, 115-112 and 115-112. Boxing News 24 scored the fight 9 rounds to 3 for Golovkin. Jacobs was given credit by the judges for rounds that he didn’t appear to win, like the 10th and 12th rounds. Jacobs was hurt in the 10th, and he was outworked by Golovkin in the 12th. The scoring by the judges for the Golovkin-Jacobs fight left a lot to be desired. It seemed like they were scoring based on cheering from the New York fans rather than one what was actually taking place in the ring.
If Jaobs is going to be fighting on the Canelo-Golovkin fight, it would be nice to see him fight someone that is actually good. Jacobs has had a lot of soft opposition during the last 7 years of his boxing career since his loss to Dmitri Pirog in 2010. In looking over Jacobs’ resume, I only see 2 good fighters that he’s fought in the last 7 years and that were Golovkin and Peter Quillin. The rest of the guys that Jacobs has fought have mediocre at best. I’d like to see Jacobs fight someone like Jermall Charlo, Ryota Murata, Tureano Johnson, Sergey Derevyanchenko, David Lemieux, Willie Monroe Jr., Andy Lee, Martin Murray, Matt Karobov or Chris Eubank Jr.
There’s no point in having Jacobs fight a guy that has zero chance of beating him, because it won’t show us anything. We’ve already seen Jacobs matched against plenty of guys over the years that had no chance of beating him. I’d like to see what Jacobs can do against someone that can actually hit him back like Tureano Johnson, Lemieux or Derevyanchenko. I think any of those 3 fighters would give the boxing public a good indication of where Jacobs is at. Jermall Charlo would be my first choice for Jacobs to fight, but Jermall will be fighting Jorge Sebastian Heiland in a World Boxing Council 160 pound title eliminator possibly next month in July. The winner of the Charlo-Heiland fight will be the WBC mandatory challenger for Golovkin’s middleweight title.
Here are the fighters that Jacobs has fought in the last 7 years since his defeat to Pirog:
– Peter Quillin
– Gennady Golovkin
– Sergeio Mora [twice]
– Caleb Truax
– Jarod Fletcher
– Milton Nunez
– Giovanni Lorenzo
– Keenan Collins
– Joshua Luteran
– Chris Fitzpatrick
– Robert Kliewer
– Jesse Orta
If Golovkin’s management is potentially interested in putting him back in with Jacobs in a rematch straightaway for later this year, then it’s going to require that Jacobs beat someone good on the undercard of the Canelo-Golovkin card. It’s no use if Jacobs is put in with a 2nd tier journeyman level fighter with no chance of beating him on the Canelo vs. GGG card.
As you can see in looking at the above mentioned fighters that Jacobs has mostly feasted on in the last 7 years of his career, he’s already fought plenty of poor opponents. Jacobs is 30-years-old now. It’s time to keep him fighting the best instead of dragging him back down to more record-padding opposition. Jacobs has had enough easy fights during his career against fodder opposition. At this point in his career, Jacobs needs to be fighting the best. If he can’t handle the best, then he needs to get out of the way so that the better fighters can challenge for world titles.