By Jim Dower: Russian Dmitry Pirog (17-0, 14 KOs) pulled of an impressive victory last Saturday night in stopping highly hyped and previously unbeaten Daniel Jacobs (20-1, 17 KO’s) in a 5th round TKO on the undercard of the Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Juan Diaz fight at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. However, instead of Pirog being interviewed after the fight by HBO analyst Jim Lampley, it was Jacobs that the HBO home viewers got to listen to instead.

For me, it just seemed really out of place to have the loser being interviewed, while the winner went ignored it. If this was the first time that Jacobs had ever fought on HBO, I still think it would have been strange. But with Jacobs having fought many times on HBO in the past, it just looked like HBO was trying to give Jacobs a chance at damage control by trying to explain away a loss.

It made no sense and gave me the impression that we’d be seeing more of Jacobs in the future rather than Pirog, who had Jacobs off balance the entire night with his unorthodox fighting style. I hope I’m wrong, because if HBO wants to show boxing fans the best fighters, I think Pirog is someone that they need to be showing more of in the future, not Jacobs.

Believe me, I’ve seen plenty of Jacobs in the past couple of years on cable and it usually involved him fighting a 2nd or 3rd tier fighter who basically had no chance of winning whatsoever. I was wondering when and if Golden Boy Promotions, the promoters for Jacobs, would have him finally take on a good opponent. It’s too bad they waited this long until Jacobs was fighting for the vacant WBO middleweight title for him to finally get put in with a live body.

By putting Jacobs in so soft all this time, I think it had a lot to do with why he looked so lost and out of it last Saturday night. He had problems reacting to the speed and energy of Pirog. It was as if it was a shock to Jacobs to be fighting someone that was actually trying to win and was fighting with speed. I think Jacobs would have been much better served had Golden Boy waited another two years before putting him in a title shot.

I think Jacobs would likely be ready for a title shot by now if Golden Boy had been putting him in with tough opponents, ones that he could have learned from. But I see the last two years as wasted time for Jacobs. I can’t see how he got anything from knocking out one overly matched opponent after another and not facing anyone that would even have a chance at throwing anything back.

It seemed so wrong to see Pirog totally ignored after the fight last Saturday, while Jacobs was being tossed softball questions by Lampley in an effort for Jacobs to come up with some kind of an excuse for the loss. At the very minimum, Lampley should have hunted Pirog down and asked him some questions and let him get a chance to be heard by the viewers at home. It wasn’t as if Pirog disappeared immediately after the fight. He was still there in the ring the whole time Jacobs was being interviewed. I don’t understand why Pirog was ignored when he was he winner of the fight and had shown remarkable Mayweather-esque boxing skills in beating Jacobs.