By Jason Kim: Unbeaten super middleweight prospect Daniel Jacobs (15-0, 14 KOs) may have sealed a May 2nd date on the undercard of the Ricky Hatton vs. Manny Pacquiao mega bout by stopping Nicaraguan Jose Varela (23-6, 16 KOs) in the 2nd round on Friday night at the UIC Pavilion, in Chicago, Illinois. Jacobs, 22, cornered Valero early in the 2nd round, and hit him with a tremendous right hand to the jaw, which dropped Valero down on the canvas.
Referee John O’Brien stepped in and stopped the bout at 1:29 of the round as Valero was too hurt to continue. Indeed, Valero didn’t even try to get up for a long time after the knockdown and was in no condition to continue fighting.
Jacobs, a former amateur star, looked far from impressive in the 1st round. He threw only a few jabs, and pawed mostly with it and didn’t seem to throw it with any kind of conviction. Although listed as the same height as the 6’1” Varela, Jacobs seemed shorter somehow.
I thought my eyes were playing a trick on me until I realized that it was because of Jacobs’ short reach in comparison to Varela. Jacobs although tall, doesn’t have very long arms, which is why that Varela was able to nail him often in the first round with jabs and Jacobs due to his shorter arms, wasn’t able to return the favor.
The round was fairly close, as neither fighter did much in the round. Jacobs landed a nice left-right to the midsection late in the round, but other than that, Jacobs mostly pawed with his jab and ate a lot of jabs from Varela.
In the 2nd round, Jacobs showed off some of his hand speed by landing a quick combination at the start of the round. Varela, 31, who took this fight on 11 days notice and was moving up two divisions to take the fight, fired back hard right to the body of Jacobs.
However, Jacobs then trapped Varela against the ropes, and hit him with a big right hand that stunned Varela. Jacobs then quickly followed with a jab that seemed to blind Varela for a fraction of a second, and then tagged him with a hard right hand to the jaw that sent Varela down on the canvas. There was no point in giving a count, because Varela was knocked out and couldn’t get up from the shot.
The knockout punch didn’t seem like all that hard of a shot, and it appeared more of a case of Varela being blinded by the jab and not expecting the right hand. Jacobs’ power seems to be a little overrated as far as I can tell. He doesn’t appear to punch any harder than other super middleweight prospects Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell.
The difference here is that Jacobs’ opposition has been much softer than Ward and Dirrell, which has made it easy for Jacobs to pile up an impressive and deceiving knockout record. Jacobs has good power, but no better than either of those two fighters. I think both of them are much better fighters than Jacobs.
He might be better off moving down a couple of divisions and fighting at light middleweight rather than super middleweight. Jacobs doesn’t have the boxing skills needed to beat the better super middleweights in the division from what I’ve seen of him.
His handlers at Golden Boy don’t see that yet, but they will when one day put him in with a good fighter. At the rate they’ve been spoon feeding him soft opponents, it may be two or three more years before Jacobs finally fights a live body.
With James Kirkland now off the May 2nd Pacquiao-Hatton undercard due to his recent arrest for possessing a weapon in his vehicle, Jacobs looks like a dead lock to be inserted as a replacement. His opponent will likely be Michael Walker, who was going to be fighting Kirkland until the recent arrest.
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