By Scott Gilfoid: Undefeated super middleweight Daniel Jacobs (11-0, 10 KOs) made short work of his opponent Tyrone Watson on Saturday night, stopping him in the 1st round of a scheduled six-round bout at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. For Jacobs, it was his eighth first round knockout and 1th overall for the former 2004 and 2005 National Golden Gloves winner. Jacobs, 21, traded shots with Watson early in the first round, getting hit with a few right hands and jabs, but returning fire with blistering combinations to the head and body.
Soon after, Jacobs knocked Watson down with a thunderous right hand to the head. Watson got up and continued fighting, but Jacobs hurt him with a powerful left hook to the body, the punch causing Watson to wince in pain, and then followed it up with another big left hook to the body that sent Watson down for the count. Referee Alan Huggins stepped in and halted the fight at 2:29 of the first round, with Watson still badly hurt from the body shots and lying on the canvas in visible pain. The Jacobs bout was on the undercard of the Bernard Hopkins vs. Kelly Pavlik bout, and easily the more exciting fight of the two.
Jacobs, who was taken the distance the first time out in his last fight, a sixth round decision over Emmanuel Gonzalez in September, looked good enough to get in the ring with Hopkins. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that Jacobs would have fared much better than the tall slender Pavlik did, perhaps good enough to beat Hopkins. Jacob’s power is lethal, a fighter that has true one-punch power, whether he’s going to the head or body.
At this point, he seems destined for a future title in either the super middleweight or light heavyweight division. At 21, standing 6’1”, Jacobs is very likely to continue growing a little more and will very likely end up as a light heavyweight, possibly a cruiserweight by the time he finishes growing. Even at this early stage of his career, with his massive power in either hand, he’d be big trouble for Hopkins, Joe Calzaghe or some of the other top fighters in the super middleweight and light heavyweight division.
However, he’s still going to be brought up slowly for the next couple of years or so, and I don’t expect him to cut his teeth against top level opposition until at least 2010, or possibly 2011. However, with his awesome power, he’d get away with a lot of mistakes he might make in the ring. His speed is good, better than Pavlik’s, and his defense also appears to be very sound as well. It’s unknown how good his chin is, though, as none of his soft opposition has had enough power to give him any kind of trouble to find out where he’s at.
He fights well on the inside and outside, and looks comfortable when fighting in both areas. He doesn’t clinch a lot like some fighters, which will make him even more exciting than some fighters like Hopkins who tends to clinch a lot and run around on the outside.