By Patrick McHugh: WBA “regular” middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs reportedly saw IBF/IBOWBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s recent fight against welterweight Kell Brook last Saturday night, and he believes he’ll knockout the Kazakhstan fighter when/if the two of them fight.
Jacobs’ adviser Connolly says that Jacobs saw enough from Golovkin’s fight against Brook to believe that he won’t be able to take his big power shots if they fight each other. World Boxing Association president Gilberto Mendoza ordered Golovkin and Jacobs to begin negotiations, giving them 30 days to negotiate the fight.
They have 120 days to make the fight. However, Connolly wants to make sure that the money is there for Jacobs before they agree to fighting Golovkin. If it’s not, then they’ll wait two or three fights down the road until the money is there. Connolly believes that a Golovkin vs. Jacobs fight would be pay-per-view worthy. He’s not sure which network would carry the fight though.
Jacobs is with adviser Al Haymon. Jacobs has been fighting on Showtime, and Golovkin on HBO. If Haymon can win a purse bid, he might choose to televise the fight on Showtime Boxing. That could result in Golovkin choosing not to take the fight, considering that he’s under contract with HBO. The WBA might then elect to strip Golovkin of his WBA title. It would a sad thing, because Golovkin seems to care about the titles. He wants to win all of them.
It would be disappointing if he has to lose one of his belts due to him not fighting Jacobs on Showtime.
The negotiations have already started between Haymon and Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions.
“I think we’ll know in the next few weeks if the fight can be made,” said Connolly to RingTV.com. “I think we can come to terms. Danny said he saw everything he needed to see to know he can beat GGG. Danny said he saw it’s not too hard to land on GGG. The fact that Kell Brook sort of stunned him a couple times and Danny knows that if he lands those kinds of punches it would be very interesting to see how GGG would react.”
It’s hard to know if Golovkin would be able to take Jacobs’ shots. It’s equally impossible to know how Jacobs would react to getting hit by Golovkin. As we saw in Jacobs’ last two fights against Sergio Mora, he’s not hard to hit. Mora was able to stick around for seven rounds against Jacobs.
If Golovkin is still there after seven rounds against Jacobs, then that’s probably not good for Jacobs. The one thing that Jacobs has problems with is when he’s forced retreat. If you look at Jacobs’ fight against Dmitry Pirog from 2010, Jacobs was in the panic mode from the pressure that Pirog was putting on him from round one. Jacobs was able to land hard single shots, but he kept getting hit in return by Pirog and he did not like it.
Jacobs kept backing away and trying to flee. That didn’t work out well for him, because Pirog was able to cut off the ring and nail him with shots. Pirog broke Jacobs mentally after the 1st round and had him running and not fighting until finishing him in the 6th. I suspect we’ll see the same thing from the Golovkin-Jacobs fight. Jacobs is a good pro, but he has the same problems he had as amateur. He doesn’t react well when he faces guys that come at him with big power. Jacobs struggled against those kinds of guys in the amateur ranks, and he’s not shown improvement as a pro. Jacobs has only fought one good fighter during his entire pro career in Pirog. The rest of the guys Jacobs has fought were flawed guys like Peter Quillin, Sergio Mora, Jarrod Fletcher and Caleb Truax.
Up until recently, Jacobs was given no chance of beating Golovkin. Jacobs’ win over Pete Quillin seems to be the thing that has changed the minds of boxing fans, as a result of his quick TKO in the 1st round. Jacobs’ five knockdown demolition job against Mora in the rematch earlier this month on September 9 further has boxing fans thinking he can beat Golovkin. It would be big news if Jacobs could KO Triple G, but I tend to think it won’t happen. Jacobs would need a solid chin to take Golovkin’s return fire for him to get a victory against him, and I don’t think he can take his shots. Golovkin has pretty good chin, and I see him being able to take enough of Jacobs’ big shots for him to get in range and take him out with a head or body shot.
The way I see it, I seriously doubt Jacobs vs. Golovkin will happen ever. As long as they’re fighting on different networks, I don’t think the fight will happen. I don’t think for a second that Golovkin will agree to fight Jacobs on Showtime. Golovkin is under contract with HBO, and that’s the only place I see him taking a fight against him. As long as the two fighters are on different networks, I can’t see it happening. I think it’s the same thing with the Sergey Kovalev vs. Adonis Stevenson fight.
Stevenson is with Haymon and he fights on Showtime. Kovalev is under contract with HBO. The WBA might have shot themselves in the foot by ordering the Golovkin vs. Kovalev fight, being that the two fighters are on different networks. By making that move, the WBA could wind up with just Jacobs as their WBA champion. If the WBA strips Golovkin for not fighting Jacobs, then they’re left with Jacobs. Golovkin would move on and continue to have a great career.
I don’t know what happens with Jacobs. He wouldn’t be able to fight Saul Canelo Alvarez, because he’s with HBO too. I doubt that Jacobs could get a fight against WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders, because he has then options of fighting Golovkin or Canelo in big money fights. Given the choice between there fighters, I see Saunders taking on Canelo or Golovkin, but definitely not Jacobs.