By Eric Baldwin: Last December, WBA middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs (31-1, 28 KOs) picked up a career best 1st round knockout win over Peter Quillin in their “Battle of Brooklyn” fight. Jacobs will be back inside the ring on July 30th on the undercard of the Carl Frampton vs. Leo Santa Cruz fight card.
Jacobs’ opponent is said to be the “Latin Snake” Sergio Mora (28-4-2, 9 KOs). Jacobs stopped the 35-year-old Mora in the 2nd round last year in August. The rationale behind a second fight between Jacobs and Mora would have to be due to the way their previous fight ended with Mora suffering an ankle injury in the 2nd round.
The Jacobs vs. Mora fight wasn’t properly concluded in the traditional sense. Jacobs and Mora were both down in the 1st round. In the 2nd round, Mora injured his right ankle and the fight was promptly stopped.
“Mora rematch July 30 on Showtime undercard of Santa Cruz-Frampton,” said Dan Rafael during his chat last Friday on ESPN.com.
The only problem with Jacobs fighting Mora is that he’s no longer ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies right now because he’s been out of the ring for the last 10 months. There would seem to be a number of more deserving fighters that should be getting the chance to fight for a world title rather than Mora.
You could pick out anyone in the World Boxing Association’s top 15 contenders and make an argument that they are more deserving of a title shot than Mora. However, the top 15 contenders aren’t as well-known as Mora, and they present more danger to Jacobs. The sport is based on entertainment, and Mora is someone who would likely bring more attention to a fight against Jacobs than someone like #4 WBA Tureano Johnson, #1 WBA Alfonso Blanco or #14 WBA Anthony Dirrell.
The WBA is expected to order Jacobs to face WBA Super World middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golokvin in the near future. Jacobs might be fighting on borrowed time as the WBA middleweight champion. Once he fights Golovkin, his time as the WBA champion will essentially be over unless Jacobs can get another surprise knockout like the one that he got in his last fight against Peter Quillin. In the meantime, Jacobs will likely look to milk his WBA title for as long as possible until he’s forced to make the decision whether to fight Golovkin or vacate his WBA title.
Mora had a brief bit of fame eight years ago when he surprised an out of shape WBC junior middleweight champion Vernon Forrest to defeat him by a surprise 12 round majority decision in June 008. Mora did not hold onto the WBA title for very long time, as Forrest came back and defeated Mora by a 12 round unanimous decision in September 2008.
Mora’s career has been a mixed bag ever since the loss to Forrest. Mora hasn’t done anything when fighting the better fighters in the last eight years, and it’s not likely that he’ll suddenly improve at 35 for the rematch against Jacobs. If anything, the fight will end suddenly with Mora getting knocked out.