Jacobs needs to impress against Arias

By Boxing News - 11/06/2017 - Comments

Image: Jacobs needs to impress against Arias

By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs fights Luis Arias this Saturday night in a crucial fight for him on HBO in Uniondale, New York. It’s important fight for Jacobs, because if he wins the fight, he’ll put himself in line for a title shot.

It’s a title eliminator, so Jacobs will at least be guaranteed a world title shot soon. Jacobs (32-2, 29 KOs) doesn’t need to be a mandatory challenger for him to get a rematch with middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. That rematch is going to happen regardless.

Golovkin and his management wants that fight so he can show the boxing world that he’s the better fighter than Jacobs. Earlier this year, Golovkin edged Jacobs by a 12 round unanimous decision on March 18. Jacobs and many of his boxing fans have insisted that he deserved the win over GGG. Arias saw the Golovkin-Jacobs fight, and he thought Golovkin did enough to get the win. Arias does think it was a close fight though.

Arias is listed at 5’11”, but he might be a little shorter than that. His last opponent, Arif Magomedov, looked an inch taller than him, and he’s supposed to be 5’10”. Magomedov clearly was the bigger fighter inside the ring with Arias in their fight

”I feel like I am a very bad fight for Danny Jacobs,” said Arias to Fighthype.com.” I think he should’ve gone in another direction for his first fight coming back, especially with his inactivity. But they made that decision and they will pay for it on the 11th!”

If Jacobs loses on Saturday, he’ll lose his chances for a rematch with Golovkin, and he’ll be put on ignore by Canelo Alvarez. It wouldn’t be the end of Jacobs’ career, as he could always rebuild his career with the help of his new promoter Eddie Hearn. If HBO doesn’t dump Jacobs after losing to Arias, they’re going to expect him to fight quality opponents on their network. Jacobs would need to fight other good fighters, and if he can’t beat them, then his career will quickly implode.

Jacobs has only had 2 fights in the last 2 years, and those were Golovkin and Sergio Mora. You can’t count Mora as being a real fight though, because he was just an old small guy with no power. It’s unclear why Jacobs devoted 2 fights against him, because that was a waste of time. The only true fights Jacobs has had in the last 7 years of his career were against Golovkin, Peter Quillin and Dmitry Pirog. The rest of the fights were against weak opponents. Pirog knocked Jacobs out in the 5th round on July 31, 2010. Jacobs denies he was knocked out, but the referee had little choice but to stop the fight. Jacobs was knocked flat by a right hand from Pirog. The referee stopped the fight at that point, as Jacobs was out cold with eyes closed.

“I’m ready to go toe-to-toe. I’m going to break up his rhythm and he’s going to be in a hard dog fight,” said Arias. ”It’s going to be a hard 12 rounds for him if he makes it to 12.”

Arias isn’t the hugest puncher, and he’s not as fast or nearly as big as Jacobs. Arias doesn’t need to be for him to beat Jacobs. He has plenty of power to hand Jacobs another loss, especially if he forces him into a dog fight. Jacobs looks a lot older than his chronological age of 30. Jacobs looks at least 8 years older than Arias. The two fighters are aging at a different rate. Arias looks like the much younger guy.

If Arias is going to beat Jacobs, he’s going to need to take some major shots in the fight like he did in his last match against Magomedov. The Russian fighter hit him with harder shots all throughout the fight. Arias simply stuck around long enough to hurt Magomedov with a big right hand in the 5th round of their fight on June 17. If Arias can last long enough to land some of his big shots, he can stop Jacobs. If Arias was able to knockout Magomedov, then he’ll do a job on Jacobs as well, because his chin isn’t as good as the Russian fighter’s.

Arias has a nice uppercut that he likes to throw. If he hits Jacobs with that shot enough times, he’ll go. Sergio Mora, who doesn’t hit anywhere near as hard as Arias, had Jacobs down on the canvas in their first fight in August 2015. Jacobs was able to get up and go on to score a 2nd round knockout. Jacobs was hurt though. If Arias lands a similar shot, Jacobs will be done for the night.

The choice if Arias for Jacobs’ first opponent in his multi-fight contract with HBO suggests that the network wants him to fight quality guys. They’re not likely to let Jacobs have it easy like he’s been mostly having it for the last 7 years. Jacobs has fought only 3 good fighters in 7 years. The rest of the guys Jacobs fought were record-padding opposition. It’s sad how badly Jacobs has been matched following his knockout loss to Dmitry Pirog in 2010. Instead of Jacobs taking one or two soft fights to get his confidence back, he was matched against dismal opposition for 5 years until his fight with Peter Quillin in 2015. Just why Jacobs’ management felt that it was necessary to feed him poor opponents for 5 solid years is the big question. By 2011, Jacobs should have been fighting for a world title instead of being fed 3rd tier opposition.

”It was a competitive fight, but he did not win that fight,” said Arias about the Jacobs vs. Golovkin fight.

Arias went onto say that Golovkin didn’t look like he was all that motivated for the fight. Arias believes Golovkin didn’t go all out because he only needed a win to get the Canelo fight. There was no real need for Golovkin to go out and obliterate Jacobs.

Arias has a real chance of beating Jacobs on Saturday. Arias is younger, fresher, more active, and he has more variety to his game. Arias can punch from any angle, and he’s sneaky on the inside with his short punches. Even when Arias is being held, he’s dangerous. Arias was nailing Magomedov with right hands while the Russian was trying to hold. If Arias lands some of those short right hands to the head of Jacobs in a clinch, he might knock him out. Jacobs’ chin is nowhere near as good as Magomedov’s from what I can see.

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