By Jeff Aranow: Daniel Jacobs (32-2, 29 KOs) believes that he should have been given the win over Gennady Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) last Saturday, but there was no controversy at all with the final decision by the three judges. Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler points out that the boxing fans aren’t making a big fuss over the outcome of the fight. There is zero controversy. Golovkin won the fight by a close decision after knocking Jacobs down in round 4 and being the aggressor during the contest.
The punch statistics showed that Golovkin landed and threw more punches and with a higher percentage of the punching connecting. Normally when a fighter scores a knockdown and lands more punches with a better percentage of connects, they get the victory.
Here are CompuBox’s punch stats for the Golovkin-Jacobs fight:
Golovkin landing 231 of 615 punches for a 38% connect percentage.
Jacobs hitting on 175 of 541 punches for a 32% connect percentage.
The only knockdown of the fight was in round 4 with Jacobs being dropped by Golovkin.
“This wasn’t a controversial decision like the Ward-Kovalev fight,” said Loeffler to thaboxingvoice.com about the Golovkin-Jacobs decision. “I think Chocolatito was more controversial. In the main event in the Gennady fight, I don’t think it was controversial. I haven’t heard a lot of controversy. Hopefully, people will think he’s actually human and will want to get in the ring with him. Daniel was the bigger guy and the heavier guy in the ring. Gennady knew what he was signing up for and that he was following the rules with the IBF’s second day weigh-in. We saw what happened with Lemieux when he chose not to do the second day weigh-in and was knocked out by Curtis Stevens. If you look at it from a strategic standpoint, you can see it as an advantage when you don’t put the focus on titles and just get an advantage for the fight. Gennady has sparred a lot of bigger guys in camp, so that shouldn’t affect him, but I’d say Danny was the bigger guy tonight,” said Loeffler.
The main thing that boxing fans are talking about on Monday is how Golovkin didn’t look good in winning. They’re not talking about the fight result being controversial. It wasn’t. Golovkin clearly won the fight despite Jacobs saying that he should have been given the win. Jacobs is on an island with his belief that he won, because the boxing world isn’t on board with him.
“The date has always been September. Golden Boy hasn’t ever wavered from that,” said Loeffer about the Golovkin vs. Saul Canelo Alvarez fight. “Gennady has two priorities – to unify the division and get the biggest fight in boxing. If we can make both of those things happen, it would be a tremendous year. Their preference is the UK,” said Loeffler about the June fight between Golovkin and Billy Joe Saunders. “I’ll have to sit down with Frank this week. If that doesn’t work out, there’s always the UK. [Gilberto] Ramirez fights on April 22. If he wins, he would be a great option for Gennady,” said Loeffler.
Golovkin will now be looking to fight WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders in June either in Kazakhstan or the UK. The first plan is to try and get the fight done in Kazakhstan. If it can’t get made there, then the UK will likely be where it takes place. Golovkin will then potentially face Saul Canelo Alvarez in September. Loeffler says WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez is also an option for GGG. However, it’s hard to imagine Golovkin taking that fight with Ramirez before facing Canelo, because it would involve him moving up to super middleweight to fight him.
The 6’2” Ramirez is too big to melt down to 160 to fight Golovkin. It would be a tough fight for Triple G, because Ramirez moves a lot, and he’s got long arms and he’s much taller. Ramirez is hard to hit. Golovkin would need to be faster at cutting off the ring than he was against Jacobs, and he would need to let his hands go more with combinations rather than looking to land some many single shots.
“Great fight. I was nervous a lot for Triple G and for decision because Jacobs, it’s his hometown,” said Sergey Kovalev to thaboxingvoice.com. “It was a good decision.”
Jacobs made it close in winning 2 out of the last 3 rounds on the judges’ scorecards. It didn’t look like Jacobs won the last 2 rounds in the minds of this writer. I had Golovkin winning rounds 10 and 12. 2 of the judges had Jacobs winning the 12th. It didn’t appear that Jacobs did enough to win the final round, because he was moving a great deal and not showing much in the way of offense. HBO had Golovkin winning round 12. The judges didn’t do a bad job scoring the fight. The right guy won the fight. It’s just the later rounds where the judge’s scores seemed a little off.
Jacobs’ stock will rise with the loss to Golovkin. Jacobs can take advantage of it by looking to get a big fight against someone like David Lemieux. Jacobs will need to wait for a rematch against Golovkin, because that’s not a fight that his promoter Loeffler is interested in right now.