By Joseph Hirsch – Gennady Golovkin’s twenty-three knockout streak ended after he won a close but unanimous decision over Danny “the Miracle Man” Jacobs. For Golovkin’s faithful fans, this is proof only that Danny Jacobs’ decision to skip a mandatory weigh-in was a sneaky tactic to come in bigger than his opponent, and that Jacobs only went the distance with the “God of War” by gaming the system.
For those who doubted Golovkin from the beginning, complaining about the quality of his opposition, the Jacobs fight served as confirmation for their view that Golovkin can look great against a good foe, but is susceptible to being out-boxed by a slick, elite fighter with a cute style.
For those of us who’ve been boxing fans for quite a while, we’ve been here before, and we know the truth lies somewhere in the middle of the myth of Golovkin as an invincible monster and GGG as a total hype job.
Recall Julio Caesar Chavez’s historic string of wins in the run-up to his faceoff with Greg Haugen, and how Haugen dismissed the proud Mexican warrior’s streak of 84 wins in a row, saying words to the effect that “He’s fought nothing but Tijuana taxi drivers.” After Chavez destroyed Haugen, the defeated boxer was gracious enough to allow, “They must have been very tough taxi drivers.”
Still a better comparison for Golovkin would probably be “Iron” Mike Tyson. Both men are murderous punchers and knockout artists, but Tyson (like Golovkin) was plagued by a similar camp of doubters whose critiques only grew in pitch as Tyson racked up KO after KO against what some called subpar opposition.
Tyson plowed his way through the heavyweight ranks, racking up a string of nineteen knockouts with little trouble over the course of about a year after turning pro, until coming up against James “Quick” Tillis. Tillis was not the journeyman some fans have mischaracterized him as, but was rather a former contender (unranked when he went in against Tyson), five of whose eight losses came against champions or former world champions.
The legendary trainer Angelo Dundee had given up on training Tillis some time ago, citing his lack of “spirit” rather than any dearth of talent. Tillis’s management told him in no uncertain terms in the leadup to his fight with Tyson that if he lost by stoppage, they were finished with him. It was make or break time and Tillis was a desperate, and thus dangerous man. Like James “Buster” Douglas sometime later, Tillis fought the fight of his life against Tyson, behaving like a new man in the ring with the knockout artist. He fought smartly from behind his jab, establishing a record by becoming the first man to last past one minute and nineteen seconds of the sixth round with the ferocious Mike Tyson, whose opponents many times lasted only a little longer than rodeo cowboys trying to grapple with broncos.
Tyson managed to give the bloodthirsty crowd a knockdown, but no knockout, sending Tillis to the deck in the fourth round. But Tillis did some of his own good work, flustering Mike behind active combos from the outside, tying up whenever it looked like he was in danger. The outcome of the fight was never in question, though the mystique of Tyson suffered, as commentator Alex Wallau pointed out in the broadcast. Mike Tyson had been built up as a god but was revealed as mortal, and the blueprint for how to beat him (or at least how to survive against him) had been laid down by Tillis. The “Fighting Cowboy” from Tulsa might only be a footnote in the storied annals of boxing history, but he’s in the history books nonetheless.
Riddick Bowe’s manager Rock Newman later observed that, had “Big Daddy” Bowe fought with Tyson (whose prison sentence left the two-fighters on a star-crossed course) the plan would have been to take Tyson the distance, since Newman believed Mike to be a phenomenal four-round fighter, a decent eight-rounder, and a lackluster pugilist when going the distance.
To return to Golovkin, his harshest detractors would say that he experienced a similar “mortal moment” against Kell “Special K” Brook, in which he was not only arguably blueprinted but some say “exposed.” Closer scrutiny of Brook-Golovkin doesn’t bear this out. Gennady Golovkin had Kell Brook’s eye looking bad from the early going, and despite some good work by “Special K,” he was a sitting duck for punishing shots when he fought off the ropes or tried to trade toe-to-toe with the Khazak Thunder. He even later conceded his corner was right to throw in the towel. After five rounds with Golovkin, the blown-up welterweight would need eye surgery to repair a broken orbital socket.
Kell Brook was probably not Golovkin’s “James Tillis” moment. It’s true that Golovkin ate some shots in their encounter, but even his greatest fans have always allowed that he is hittable. A seek-and-destroy, high-pressure come forward fighter who likes to “make street fights” and fight “Mexican style” will not only take punishment, but will sometimes invite it to give the crowd a “big drama show.” This is part of what explains Golovkin’s rabid, Tyson-esque fan base and their devotion to a man Max Kellerman has dubbed boxing’s most sensational fighter (which, it must be added, is different from saying Golovkin is the most talented fighter, or that he deserves to be perched at the top of anyone’s pound-for-pound list).
And Golovkin can afford to be hit. His jaw is invariably tucked and his balance is usually near-perfect. His chin is arguably the best since George Chuvalo’s, and he has never come close to tasting canvas as a pro or amateur.
Amateur experience is another major difference between Tyson and Golovkin that shows the comparison is apt but can only be carried so far. Tyson has a respectable but unspectacular amateur record of 48-6, with two losses to his future victim in the pros, Henry Tillman. Golovkin’s amateur pedigree is the stuff of legend, with his wins being listed as 345 (including one over Lucian Bute) and losses reported between five and eight in number. He captured silver in the 2004 Athens Olympics, and he certainly achieved this with more than merely a good chin and heavy hands.
Golovkin’s name appears on all sorts of Compubox leaderboards. He is a jabbing machine, landing at five times the average middleweight rate against David Lemieux. I may have criticized his head movement earlier, but he is doing something right if his ability to ruin an opponent’s connect percentage is second only to Floyd Mayweather’s.
The bottom line is that-contra Golovkin’s haters- the man can box as well as brawl. He is perfectly capable of staying locked in on his target well into the championship rounds, as proven earlier in his match with Martin Murray.
Still the question remains, now that he has finally faced another great fighter in his prime: was he out-boxed by Jacobs or just outmuscled by a guy who would have been victim twenty-four if he had come in at the contracted weight limit?
The final punch stats for Golovkin-Jacobs tell a story, but it is only one part of the narrative, with the figures revealing that Golovkin threw more and was more accurate overall; the war of the jabs tells a similar tale, with Golovkin again more accurate and more active. When it comes to power punches, Golovkin threw fewer but was more accurate. But to judge a fight on these figures alone would make pro boxing no different from the amateurs.
The eyes tell a different story than the numbers, and pro fights can be scored with different systems. HBO’s unofficial scorer Harold Lederman says it always comes down to a simple question: who would you rather be between the two fighters in a given round? When you have your answer, you have your winner. Some judges see sticking and moving as the essence of the sweet science, while others see the same behavior as spoiling tactics that shouldn’t be rewarded with points. Someone in the crowd may boo what they view as a lack of action, while another fan views the same round and sees a war of wits and a standoff as suspenseful as the most action-packed round.
I can remember numerous occasions when I was ringside and saw a fight going one way, only to go home and watch the fight on TV and score it another way. In the heat of the moment at Cintas Center in Cincinnati, I watched Adrian Granados vs. Adrien Broner, and surrounded by fans and within spitting distance of the combatants, I thought “El Tigre” did enough to edge out Broner. Watching a replay on Showtime with various camera angles that I obviously couldn’t enjoy while seated ringside, I saw something a bit different. The margin in my scoring didn’t change massively, but it was enough to move the affair from one man’s column to another.
Some fights produce the same score no matter how many times I watch them. I’ve viewed Kovalev-Ward several times now, in several different mind frames and relying on different systems, and each viewing produces the same result: a two-point victory for Sergey Kovalev. I could watch Malignaggi-Diaz I a thousand times, and the result would be the same: They robbed the “Magic Man” that night and he had every right to go on his bitter post-fight tirade.
It goes without saying that judges are human. It is hard to isolate a fight from the cheering of a crowd and the blood streaming down the face of a fighter (even if the blood was caused by an accidental headbutt and not a punch). Numerous other factors can mar an otherwise objective score. A judge watching Cotto-Mayweather from one angle would see what looked like Cotto landing shots flush on Floyd pinned against the ropes; from another angle, it would be much easier to see Floyd slipping those same thudding punches, blocking them with his arms and doing the nigh-on impossible, swimming without getting wet against Cotto and remaining in the pocket, deflecting shots with a masterful shoulder roll that made it seem as if he’d slicked his deltoids with grease before getting in the ring.
Roy Jones, Max Kellerman, and Jim Lampley called Golovkin-Jacobs, which isn’t the same thing as scoring it. Those of us who came to the fight with the preconceived notion that Golovkin was a monster came as fans, which is not the most impartial state of mind to judge a fight; those who thought Kell Brook exposed Golovkin no doubt saw a guy who had been fighting Tijuana taxi-drivers catching stick from Jacobs and being exposed as Danny doused Golovkin’s fire with his finesse.
Having watched the fight three times now with my best pair of “judge eyes,” I have to side with legendary trainer and Cus D’Amato disciple Teddy Atlas regarding whether or not Golovkin was “exposed.” I have to concede that the truth about Golovkin is where the truth usually lies: somewhere in the middle. It’s hard for Teddy not to know this lesson well, as he saw firsthand the kid behind the myth of Mike Tyson, the bullied youth who was teased as “Big Head Mike” before coming to Catskill, New York, a child in a man’s body who was rescued from the Tryon School for Boys, who spoke in a shy lisp and counted coops filled with pigeons among his closest companions. He saw the Mike Tyson behind the marketing and media machine, the kid who would cry before fights because he was afraid he would disappoint the father figure he had finally found in Cus D’Amato.
I doubt Gennady Golovkin fits the same psychological profile as Mike Tyson to a “t,” though they do share the same generally soft voice outside of the ring, the curiously gentle demeanor (I’m speaking of mannerisms, not rap sheets here), and the willingness to admit to fear and recognize its importance to the fighter. Also Golovkin is not responsible for his image as an indestructible force of nature. He’s always conducted himself as a gentleman and a great ambassador for the sport, and I somehow don’t think he and Abel Sanchez sit around in Big Bear creating all those funny memes about what a badass Golovkin is. He should not have to live up to an image of himself that he neither created nor endorses.
The ultimate point is that no matter how you scored Golovkin-Jacobs, or whether or not Golovkin’s stock rose, stayed the same, or dipped in your eyes afterwards, the “Tillis” moment comes eventually for every fighter in the game, unless their record is padded or they’re overprotected. But unlike Tyson (or at least Rock Newman’s perception of him) there is not a moment where Golovkin ceases his pressure or his attack, when he allows his frustration to veer into hopelessness or especially dirty tactics. Many men used to seeing their opponents fall before them in short order sometimes give up or at least wilt when they finally meet their match. Golovkin did not do that with Jacobs. He continued to box with the calm precision of a cyborg programmed to stalk and break his opponent.
YouTube personality and boxing commentator Rummy (check out Rummy’s Corner) makes a good point when he says Golovkin-Jacobs is the kind of fight in which both fighters can see their stock rise in the aftermath, and that is perhaps as it should be.
Jacobs’ critics will say that because he came in overweight, he had an unfair advantage. They are of course forgetting that Abel Sanchez said Kell Brook had an advantage because, as a natural welterweight, he enjoyed an arguable hand- and footspeed edge over Golovkin. Gains in one dimension imply losses in another, and whatever Jacobs gained in weight he should have sacrificed in speed. In those moments when Golovkin did not slow Jacobs or stop him in his tracks, it was in part due to his choice to follow rather than cut off the ring, and also his inexplicable decision to forego bodywork to take Jacobs’ legs away from him.
The best fighters find a way to beat their man no matter what supposed advantages he has over them, up to and including being larger than them. Whenever Jack “the Manassa Mauler” Dempsey was asked about fighting someone larger than him, he would reputedly grin and reply, “These big, slow guys are meat to me.” Jacobs was big, but not slow, and though Golovkin’s fans will hate me for saying it, he deserves some credit not just for surviving against Triple G, but for making it much closer than most experts thought it would be. Ring Magazine, for instance, polled twenty-two industry insiders and every one of them picked Golovkin to win, most expecting it to end by knockout.
That it went the distance doesn’t reflect poorly on Golovkin. Gennady still has some exciting matches left in him, hopefully one of which is against Canelo Alvarez. Unlike Mike Tyson after the Tillis fight, though, Golovkin is no spring chicken. At 34 he is well down a beaten path that Tyson was just starting to trod when he became the youngest man in history to become heavyweight champ, after besting Trevor Berbick in a fight measured in seconds rather than minutes. Max Kellerman is fond of saying that “Father Time is undefeated, with one draw against Bernard Hopkins” but even the Executioner has now fallen victim to the scythe in the form of Joe Smith Jr.’s fists, and GGG only has so much time left to secure his legacy.
As for Danny Jacobs, he feels (perhaps rightly) that he deserves a rematch with the champ. If this does happen, he should make every effort to answer his own doubters by coming in at the contracted weight, on the day of the final weigh-in. If he wins in that case, all credit is due to the “Miracle Man.”
If a rematch doesn’t come off, Danny Jacobs might want to consider fighting David Lemieux, another fighter who looked a bit bulky in his last matchup against Curtis Stevens, but also proved he has the punching power to make a win over a solid former Golovkin opponent the next best thing to another chance in the ring with GGG.
For those who are curious about my final score for the fight, my card is posted below. Just as ringside observers must follow the rules in scoring something as a knockdown if a referee rules it as such (even when disagreeing with the decision), I may disagree with Jacobs refusing to participate in the final weigh-in, but I cannot “grade on a curve” or subtract points for what I think are the bogus politics surrounding the sport of boxing. I can only judge and score what I saw in thirty-six minutes of what I maintain was a good night for boxing, and a good showing for both boxers.
Joey’s Card:
Rd 1- Respectful war of Jabs. Golovkin with slight edge. 10-9 Golovkin
Rd 2- Jacobs switches southpaw; another quiet round with Jacobs edging it out. 10-9 Jacobs
Rd 3- Golovkin coming in behind the jab, beating Jacobs by split-second timing. Jacobs is coming on strong at the end of the round, but it’s not enough. Golovkin 10-9
Rd 4- Golovkin continues to stalk, puts Jacob on canvas. Jacobs recuperates quickly and the war of potshots resumes. 10-8 Golovkin
Rd 5- Golovkin continues with a high-pressure attack. Jacobs has moments using his reach effectively, but it’s Golovkin’s round. 10-9 Golovkin
Rd 6- Jacobs sticks and moves very well, and even controls the center of the ring a couple of times. 10-9 Jacobs
Rd 7- A repeat of round six, only with some roughhousing and a bit of macho posturing by Jacobs, who keeps Golovkin occupied with combos. 10-9 Jacobs
Rd 8- Jacobs back to orthodox, measuring Golovkin again despite the ref’s prior warning. Jacobs jabs and uses his head movement to neutralize Golovkin’s power. 10-9 Jacobs
Rd 9- Significant shift in momentum. Golovkin does a good job of penetrating Jacobs’ guard with uppercuts. Jacobs’ showboating backfires. 10-9 Golovkin
Rd 10- Good ebb and flow. Inside fighting early favors Golovkin. Jacobs slips out and tees off on Golovkin at will, regaining the upper-hand in a round that was going Golovkin’s way. 10-9 Jacobs
Rd 11- Each man has his moments. Golovkin tries to make it a phone booth fight. Jacobs tries to fight at distance again. A very hard round to score, but Jacobs edges it. 10-9 Jacobs.
Rd 12- Not a clean round. Lots of smothered punches and clinches with admonitions from the ref, but a slight edge in effective aggression to Jacobs. 10-9 Jacobs
As you can see, like Yahoo Sports, Box Nation, USA Today, and Sporting News, I have Jacobs wining by a small margin. And like two of those publications (Yahoo and Box Nation) I had it scored at 114-113 for Danny Jacobs. Some of those rounds were close and could have swung either way, and I don’t fault the official judges, Max DeLuca, Don Trella, or Steve Weisfeld for their final respective tallies of 114-113, 115-112, and 115-112, all three for Gennady Golovkin.
The main gamechanger in the fight was the fourth-round knockdown Jacobs suffered. Remove the flash knockdown affair (in which the fighters’ legs appeared to become tangled) and the scoring would be even tighter. Considering that most prefight predictions factored in Jacobs’ knockdown to Sergio “the Snake” Mora and his KO upset loss to Dmitry Pirog and figured Danny would get KO’d, Jacobs deserves some credit for losing a decision on his feet, and putting an end to Golovkin’s shoot-the-moon streak, regardless of what he weighed on the day of the fight.