By Dan Ambrose: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is not perceived as the best of the middleweight contenders in the eyes of unbeaten middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. He feels that WBA ‘regular’ middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) is the strongest of the contenders in the division. Golovkin may have unintentionally skipped over the 26-year-old Canelo due to his persistence in calling himself a junior middleweight instead of a middleweight, but my guess is Golovkin doesn’t rate him as highly as he does the 29-year-old Jacobs.
Golovkin and Jacobs are supposed to be facing each other in the first quarter of 2017 if the fight can get negotiated by their management. If not, then one of them will need to give up their WBA titles, and move on. It doesn’t look like Golovkin is going to be that guy though, because he absolutely wants to hold onto his WBA title. Golovkin’s goal is to unify all the belts in the 160lb division.
Golovkin said this to ESPN.com about Daniel Jacobs and a fight against him in 2017:
“Jacobs is the fight that I would like to be my next fight, because Jacobs is probably the strongest middleweight contender in the world,” Golovkin said. “It’s a serious challenge for me, and that’s why it’s a very interesting fight. He has a big name, so this is a very interesting and serious fight. I would like to beat Jacobs, and I would like him to be my next opponent. He is maybe the most qualified fighter to fight against.”
We’re going to find out soon if Golovkin and Jacobs will be facing each other in 2017, because their negotiations will need to be finished by early next year. Golovkin cannot spend a lot of time on trying to make the fight against Jacobs. Golovkin is trying to become a star, and the best way for him to accomplish that is by fighting three to four times per year.
It may or may not be as important to Jacobs to stay as busy as Golovkin with his career. Golovkin can’t let his career be stalled out by trying to negotiate a fight against someone whose management team is not able to come to an agreement with Golovkin’s management.
Jacobs will give Golovkin some practice to get ready for the Canelo fight later on in the year in September 2017 if the fight can get put together. Jacobs is a different type of fighter than Canelo though. He’s taller, faster, and he throws better combinations.
Jacobs also has better stamina than Canelo. Jacobs is able to throw a lot of shots without getting tired and needing to rest on the ropes the way Canelo does. Canelo fights in brief spurts, because he seems to be incapable of sustained fighting. That’s why Canelo’s last opponent Liam Smith had success against him during different rounds, because he was able to push a fast pace.
Where Liam Smith went wrong was his inability to fight hard for the full three minutes of each round. Smith needed rest breaks almost as often as Canelo, and this helped slow the action down enough for Canelo to take advantage of the situation. If it had been Golovkin inside the ring with Canelo last September rather than Liam Smith, then Canelo would have been under a great deal of constant pressure and we likely would have seen him gas out and get stopped like with Kell Brook.
Golovkin beat Brook by a 5th round knockout last September in their fight in London, England. Brook had his moments in rounds 1 and 2. By round 3, Golovkin turned up the heat on Brook, forcing him to fight for the full three minutes of the rounds. Brook was forced to stay on the move. The nonstop movement tired Brook out quickly, and by the next round in the 4th, he was starting to tire. In the 5th, it was all over, as Golovkin trapped Brook against the ropes, hurt him with a body shot, and then unloaded on him with power shots until Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle threw in the towel to have the fight stopped.
“It’s not a question of disappointment. It’s a question of following the WBA rules,” Golovkin said about the fight against Jacobs not being made. “I had no choice because Jacobs is my mandatory, so I have to fight against him and deal with the situation. So be it. I will fight against him when we get everything worked out. Now we need to resolve the situation, and then I will fight against Jacobs.”
When dealing with fights ordered by the sanctioning bodies, it puts Golovkin in situations where he needs to invest more time in negotiating those types of contests than it does with normal fights. If this were a normal voluntary defense for Golovkin, he could walk away from the fight negotiations like he did with Chris Eubank Jr. if his promoters at K2 were unable to get the fight hammered out in a reasonable amount of time.
Golovkin can’t do this with the Jacobs fight because it was ordered by the World Boxing Association. If Golovkin walks away, he would lose his WBA title by them stripping him of his title. That would not be good news for him, because he wants to unify all the titles in the 160lb division.
Golovkin wants to fight Jacobs, and then get a fight in June followed by September and December. If Golovkin can get all those fights in next year, he’ll be very busy.