By Dan Ambrose: Daniel Jacobs will be facing Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan (27-2, 19 KOs) in his next fight on April 28th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. For Jacobs (33-2, 29 KOs), this will be his second fight of his multi-fight contract with HBO, as well as his second with Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn from the UK.
This looks like the same bad deal for Hearn as him signing Cuban heavyweight Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz, and then watching him look listless against Dave Allen and Malik Scott, while bringing in poor ratings. O’Sullivan is not the fight that Jacobs needs for him to become a big name. It was a couple of months ago that Hearn was talking about turning Jacobs into a big star in the U.S, but it’s not happening because he’s not matching him against the right opposition.
Jacobs should be fighting Billy Joe Saunders, Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Jermell Charlo, and Jarrett Hurd. Instead, Hearn is matching Jacobs against little known Luis Arias and O’Sullivan. This is turning out just like how heavyweight Luis Arias when he was with Hearn. Ortiz didn’t get matched against the right fighters, and he just wasted his time with Hearn. Hearn can always try and lure Kell Brook up to middleweight to feed him to Jacobs like he did in throwing him in with Gennady Golovkin in 2016. Golovkin like a T-Rex diming on a snack.
This is not a good call for Jacobs in fighting the 33-year-old O’Sullivan. There’s no gain in this fight. O’Sullivan is guy that was easily beaten by Billy Joe Saunders and Chris Eubank Jr. Jacobs should be fighting those guys instead of the guy they both easily beat. Jacobs obviously is going to take the fight with O’Sullivan because it’s a payday, and he has to fight someone now that he’s signed with HBO. They’re going to green light the fight, but I imagine they’re going to start wondering whether it’s worth it to keep Jacobs on their network if he’s just going to continually fight over-matched fodder like Luis Arias and O’Sullivan. HBO obviously signed Jacobs thinking he’d be involved in some big fights, but he’s now on his second fight of his multi-fight contract, and it’s starting to look like this is going to be a trend for him in facing fringe level fighters. HBO probably should have put their foot down and insisted that Jacobs at least fight Demetrius Andrade, Jermall Charlo or Sergiy Derevyanchenko. Jacobs has shown no interest in fighting those guys for some reason.
Jacobs should be taking on a better class of opponent like Demetrius Andrade, Sergiy Derevyanchenko or Jermall Charlo, but he and his promoter Eddie Hearn aren’t willing to take that kind of a risk. Jacobs is waiting around hoping he can get Saul Canelo Alvarez or Gennady Golovkin to fight him. Jacobs may not get either of those guys to ever fight him, especially if he keeps using a lot of movement in his fights like he did in his loss to Golovkin last year. If Jacobs runs from O’Sullivan like he did in the first 6 rounds against Golovkin, he can forget about ever fighting Canelo, because the Mexican star does not like to fight guys that run from him.
However, this is not a step up in class for the 30-year-old Jacobs from his last fight against Luis Arias on November 11 on HBO. It’s the same fringe level fighter for Jacobs that he fought against Arias. O’Sullivan, 33, is a little older than the 27-year-old Arias, and not quite as skilled in terms of boxing ability and defense. The main difference between O’Sullivan and Arias is the punching power of O’Sullivan. If he lands one of his big shots on the chin of Jacobs, he could put him to sleep for a awhile like Dmitry Pirog did in his 5th round knockout win over Jacobs in 2010. That’s why you can expect for Jacobs to fight defensively for the first 6 or 7 rounds until he thinks O’Sullivan is a less of a threat to hurt him. That’s how Jacobs fights. He’s not a brave fighter when he’s fighting someone with power. Jacobs’1st round knockout win over Peter Quillin in December 2015 was an anomaly. Jacobs usually fights timidly when he’s facing guys with power. Hearn probably only looked back on Jacobs’ resume as far as 2015 when he agreed to promote him. If he’d looked at Jacobs’ entire career, he’d have seen that he’s very cautious when facing opposition with any kind of power.
Jacobs has seemingly made a career out of not being knocked out by middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin in their fight last year in March. Jacobs was able to go the full distance with Golovkin, and end his consecutive knockout streak. Since the fight ended, Jacobs has told anyone that is willing to listen that he should have been given the win over GGG. The judges and the boxing public don’t agree with Jacobs. The judges scored it for Golovkin by a 12 round unanimous decision. Golovkin subsequently fought Saul Canelo Alvarez last September in a fight that was scored a 12 round draw. Now the two of them will likely be fighting each other in a rematch on May 5. If not for the Canelo-Golovkin rematch, Jacobs would have an excellent chance of fighting one of the two. If not Jacobs, then WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders would have had an excellent chance of getting Golovkin to fight him. The Canelo-GGG rematch has slowed things down. Hearn signed Jacobs to his Matchroom Sport stable believing he would get a rematch with Golovkin and beat him or a fight with Canelo. Thus far, it’s not happening, and you have to wonder how long Hearn will keep Jacobs signed with his promotion if he’s not able to get one of those 2 stars to fight him. Saunders is going to wait like Jacobs for the Canelo vs. Golovkin 2 rematch to play out and hope that one of the 2 fighters will face him. In the meantime, Saunders is staying busy by defending his WBO 160 lb. title against former 4-time world title challenger Martin Murray (36-4-1, 17 KOs0 on April 14 at the O2 Arena in London, England. Murray, 35, amounts to be a stay busy opponent. It’s hard to believe Murray is now just a warm-up guy, because it wasn’t long ago that he was giving champions like Sergio Martinez, Arthur Abraham and Felix Sturm huge problems.
O’Sullivan revealed on Wednesday that he agreed to the terms given to him by Hearn for him to fight former IBF middleweight champion Jacobs on April 28th at the Barclays Center. O’Sullivan has one-sided losses to Chris Eubank Jr. and Billy Joe Saunders. However, O’Sullivan impressed Jacobs and Hearn with his 7th round knockout win over fringe contender Antoine Douglas on the undercard of the Saunders vs. David Lemieux card on HBO World Championship Boxing on December 16.
If Jacobs can’t knockout O’Sullivan in 5 or 6 rounds on April 28, then it’s going to be a real wakeup call for Hearn. It’ll be like a cup of coffee for him to see what he’s got in Jacobs. He seems to think Jacobs is a knockout artist. He’s not. Those knockouts on Jacobs’ resume mostly came against weak opposition earlier in his career. Jacobs hasn’t knocked out any good fighters, and no I don’t consider Quillin and Sergio Mora good fighters at this point in their careers.
O’Sullivan is a step down from Jacobs’ last opponent Luis Arias. You have to wonder Hearn is able to put together the big fights he needs to when it comes to making matches for Jacobs. Hearn can certainly put together fights for IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, but that’s a different story. Joshua already a star in boxing. Jacobs isn’t a star, and at this rate he never will be.