By Jim Dower: IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin is hard at work in training camp high in the mountains of Big Bear California for his March 18 fight against Daniel Jacobs. This is by far the toughest fight of Golovkin’s 11-year pro career. In the video, Golovkin is seen running in the snowy mountains of Big Bear California, which he says reminds him of his home country of Kazakhstan.
Being in the mountains for training camp, it helps Golovkin stay focused on his fight against the 29-year-old Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs). There are no distractions for Golovkin in training camp, and he’s able to concentrate fully on getting ready for a very dangerous opponent.
Being up at high altitude helps Golovkin increase his stamina for his fights so that he can fight at a high pace. We saw some of that in Golovkin’s last title defense against Kell Brook on September 10 last year.
Brook made it clear from round 1 that he wasn’t going to stand and brawl with him the way many of GGG’s opponents have. Brook stayed on the move for five rounds, and made Golovkin cut the ring off to force him to fight. Golovkin’s good conditioning paid off in round 5 with him trapping Brook against the ropes and hitting him with a number of high density power shots that forced his trainer to have the referee stop the match.
It was a good fight for Golovkin. He may need to use the same tactics against Jacobs, because he’s going to have studied the Golovkin-Brook fight in great detail. Jacobs and his trainer will note the success that Brook had at times with his fast 1-2 combinations and his movement. Golovkin did eventually force a stoppage in the 5th, but it was a close fight up until the end.
The contest might have had a different ending if Brook’s right eye socket wasn’t busted. It was a freak injury that could have happened to anyone. It was just Brook’s bad luck that he was hit with one of Golovkin’s left hooks that caught him on his right eye socket while he was coming forward. Brook supplied much of the power that injured his eye with the way that he was coming forward.
The Golovkin-Jacobs fight will be shown on HBO pay-per-view. The fight will be taking place at Madison Square Garden in New York. The venue is probably more suited to Jacobs, as he’s from Brooklyn, New York, and he’ll likely have a lot of his own boxing fans that will be attending the fight. Golovkin is quite popular in the New York area, as we saw from his sellout fight against David Lemieux on October 17, 2015 at Madison Square Garden. The fans came to see Golovkin fight, and they were not disappointed. He knocked Lemieux down once before stopping him in round 8.
Jacobs has a real chance of pulling an upset in this fight over Golovkin. Brook showed that Golovkin is vulnerable to speedy combinations and uppercuts. What hurt Brook’s chances of winning the fight wasn’t Golovkin’s power. It was the eye injury Brook suffered. Jacobs has more power and size than Brook, and he has a great chance of winning the fight as long as he doesn’t get caught with any silly shots in this fight. Jacobs is a smart fighter, and he’s not going to put himself in harm’s way.
Tickets for the Golovkin vs. Jacobs fight are still on sale for Madison Square Garden. The fight is expected to be a sellout, so boxing fans need to purchase the tickets while they still can. Tickets can be purchased at Ticketmaster at 866-858-0008. They can also be purchased on their website at www.ticketmaster.com