By Chris Williams: I got to say, the more I see of super middleweight prospect Daniel Jacobs (14-0, 13 KOs) the more I tend to doubt his chances to win a title in the future. Although he’s tremendously hyped on many other sites on the net, but he’s done little to prove that he’s worth hyping at this point.
His most recent fight, a 1st round TKO over a terribly over-matched Jose Luis Cruz (12-16-3, 4 KOs) last Saturday night at the Toyota Center, in Houston, Texas, was the typical C-class fodder that Jacobs has been served up since turning pro in 2007.
While there’s no shame in fighting crap opponents at this point in his career, you would expect him to have to face a lot better than what he has been facing in order to win all the praise that he’s been getting as of late. For me, that’s a problem, because he needs to be showing what he can do against good fighters before he should get praise. When watching him fight, I see way too many flaws for me to get excited about his ability.
For starters, he has no head movement, he doesn’t jab enough, and he rarely throws combinations. Most of the time, Jacobs’s loads up with one big shot after another, in a very predictable pattern of fighting. In contrast to Jeff Lacy, another knockout artist, Jacobs doesn’t look nearly as advanced at the same point in their careers.
After 14 fights, Lacy had a record of 14-0, with 11 knockouts, which is remarkably close to Jacobs 14-0, 13 KOs. However, behind the record, though, Lacy was always able to throw combinations and a good jab, something that Jacobs rarely does. Besides this, Lacy always used a good head movement when coming inside and he never came inside without throwing a jab on the way in. With Jacobs, he tries to bomb without a jab and ends up telegraphing his punches badly.
Aside from his technical flaws, Jacobs is all wrong for the super middleweight division and needs to consider moving down to middleweight. He’s listed as 6’1″, which is a good height for a super middleweight. However, he’s got short Tyrannosaurus Rex arms for his height and his frame is small compared to the bigger framed super middleweights like Carl Froch, Jermain Taylor and many others.
His short arms will put him at a big disadvantage against a boxer/puncher like Taylor or Froch, because Jacobs won’t be able to fight at a distance because of his short arms, and because of the fact that he rarely jabs for any length of time, he would have big problems against one of those fighters.
In Jacobs fight last Saturday against Cruz, Jacobs started off trying to jab frequently in the opening minute of the round. Unfortunately, he quickly abandoned his jab and fell back to the way he always fights, throwing one power shot at a time, throwing few combinations or jabs. Due to the limited ability of his opponent, Jacobs was eventually able to catch up to him and drop him with a lead right hand.
Again, there was no jab or left hand thrown before the right and it’s a miracle that he was able to score at all with the single right hand. Seconds later, Jacobs dropped Cruz for a second time after connecting with a left to the body and then a right to the head as Cruz was backed up against the ropes. Referee Robert Gonzalez then stopped the fight at 2:59 of the 1st.
It was a good win but given the poor quality of his opponent, the win means absolutely nothing. He may have won in the 1st round, he showed all the same flaws that he’s been showing since turning pro in 2007. At this point, I don’t even see him being as good as Lacy, even Jeff at this stage of his career.
Jacobs has a lot to learn about fighting before he’s ready to be considered as a future start. And what I’ve seen of his in the past six months, he’d made no improvements over his flawed style of fighting.
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