By Dan Ambrose: Two months after his disappointing loss to Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, Daniel Jacobs is still fuming about the defeat, as he believes that he should have been given the victory by the three judges. At the very least, Jacobs (32-2, 29 KOs) he did enough to deserve a draw in their fight on March 18 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Jacobs says he wants a rematch with Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs), but he was told that he won’t get one for another 4 or 5 fights down the road. Jacobs, 30, suspects that by the time Golovkin fights another 5 times, he’ll be retiring from boxing rather than giving him a second chance.
Jacobs would like to fight the winner of the Golovkin vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight. Whether he can get one of those two to fight him immediately is unknown. Golovkin wants to win the WBO middleweight title if he can get past Canelo. What complicates a rematch for Jacobs is Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez is saying that Triple G is moving up to super middleweight division.
Jacobs lost to Golovkin by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scored 114-113, 115-112 and 115-112. The fight was close. What decided it was a knockdown of Jacobs in round 4 and getting staggered last in the fight in round 10.
“The ultimate challenge was Triple G,” said Jacobs to Dontae’s Boxing Nation. “They just knew I was going to get knocked out. People just knew I was going to lose. I was an 8 to 1 underdog. I was able to not show the world that I am what I say I am, but I was able to make your favorite fighter, the guy they say is the boogeyman, very ordinary. Now the most feared fighter in the sport is ducking another fighter that, because I’m not hearing any rematch in the camp. I’m hearing 4 or 5 fights down the line. He might be retired in 4 of 5 fights down the line. You don’t know,” said Jacobs.
Jacobs is right about Golovkin likely retiring. I think he’s not going to give Jacobs a rematch. What’s working against Jacobs getting a rematch is he’s not very popular in the boxing world with the casual fans. Jacobs hasn’t had enough profile fights during his career for him to build a large following. It’s just been Golovkin and Peter Quillin. The rest of the fighters that Jacobs has fought have been ones that only the hardcore boxing fans would recognize.
Jacobs could help his chances of getting a second fight with Golovkin if he were to take on some of the best fighters at 160 to make more of a name for himself. Without Jacobs increasing his popularity by fighting other big names or by winning more title, he doesn’t have much to offer Triple G. Jacobs is in a worse position than Golovkin was when he was chasing Canelo Alvarez for the last 2 years. At least in Golovkin’s case, he was a world champion with an unbeaten record and a long knockout streak stretching back to 2008. Jacobs has none of those things going for him. He lost his last fight, and he doesn’t hold a world title at this time.
“The fight will be determined if Canelo can take Triple G’s shots,” said Jacobs in giving his thoughts on the outcome of the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight.
Golovkin may still beat Canelo even if he doesn’t knock him out. I know it’s hard to believe that Canelo woud lose a decision to a fighter not as popular as him, but Golovkin might get the better of Canelo enough to where the judges won’t dare put themselves in the position by giving the rounds to Canelo if he doesn’t deserve it.
“I think I proved myself that night,” said Jacobs about the Golovkin fight. “I think you saw the best Daniel Jacobs in that fight, but you didn’t see the best Triple G. A lot of people are talking good things about me than they are Triple G after the fight. What other fighter that you’ve seen loses a fight on paper that’s getting so much praise and recognition for such a job well done. I feel like I truly won the fight. Me not being the favorite going into the fight and showing he world exactly what I had. I gave my heart. I gave everything I had that night. You didn’t see the boogeyman that night, and you saw me dismantle and expose a lot of his flaws, which I said I was going to do. I am happy about my performance, but the best is yet to come,” said Jacobs.
Jacobs tried his best, but he wasn’t able to do enough against Golovkin in that fight to rate the decision. It’s nice that Jacobs is living off the Golovkin fight by talking about it as if he won, but he didn’t win. Jacobs should get busy again with his career because he’s just sitting and constantly talking about the fight instead of moving on and not wasting more of his career. Jacobs didn’t “dismantle” and he didn’t really “expose” Golovkin the way he talks about. The fact of the matter is Jacobs fought defensively for three fourths of the fight. By the time Jacobs did go on the attack in the last 3 rounds, he was hopelessly behind in the fight.
“We’re going to keep pushing because clearly he doesn’t want a rematch in the immediate future, so we’ll see what happens,” said Jacobs in talking about Golovkin.
I don’t think Golovkin is running from a rematch with Jacobs. It’s more of a situation of Jacobs not having anything to offer. He’s not popular, he doesn’t have the last world title that Golovkin is looking to capture and worst of all, and he’s a runner. Golovkin likes to fight guys that stand and fight. He doesn’t like to chase fighters around the ring like he had to do with Jacobs. There’s also the little trick that Jacobs did in not weighing in the day of the fight for the International Boxing Federation’s weight check.
Jacobs skipped that in order to get an advantage over Golovkin. Jacobs seemed to really bulk up to gain an advantage. With all that Jacobs did to try and get an advantage over Golovkin, why would he want to fight him a second time? Is Jacobs going to skip the official weigh-in too for the next fight? I wouldn’t put it past him. if the objective for Jacobs is to win at all costs, then what would stop him from skipping out on the official weight in and coming into the fight in the 190s? I think if Golovkin ever fights Jacobs again, he needs to have a rehydration limit of 173 at the most with a huge weight penalty if Jacobs coming in over that mark. I think that would keep things fair to where Golovkin isn’t facing a guy that is much heavier than him.
“About 100 times, and it always bothers me how the judges scored the fight the way they did,” said Jacobs when asked how many times he’s watched his fight with Golovkin. “I gave Triple G two courtesy rounds, and I still feel like I won the fight. If anything, they could have made it a draw. All I can do is not cry. Understand the position I’m in. Being who I am in the sport, and not really having a strong fan base and being against the super star of the division, I worked my way. I understand the position I’m in, where I was going in there fighting Triple G. I wasn’t just fighting Triple G. I was fighting the powers to be and Triple G, you understand. So I had to knock that man out in order to get the victory and we see that. I can’t continue to cry because I know the sport I’m in. I know how the game works. All I can do is continue pushing and continue to strive. I didn’t have a period where I was down, because I truly feel like I won,” said Jacobs.
There are a lot of boxing fans that disagree with Jacobs in him thinking he won. I’d say most of the fans believe that Golovkin did enough to get the victory. It wasn’t a conspiracy with the judges giving Golovkin the win because of his popularity and what he means to the sport. They gave Golovkin the win because he dominated the first half of the fight, and won several of the last six rounds. Jacobs was running most of the fight instead of fighting. That’s what it looked like to me. Jacobs fought like he was afraid of Golovkin.
“The reception of the fans makes me feel even better about the whole situation, because I know they’re going to support me through it all no matter what,” said Jacobs. ”I proved that I’m an entertainer. I have what it takes to be the best middleweight in the world, because Abel Sanchez said he was waiting for the 7th or 8th round and they were going to stop me. That was his prediction. I was going through the fight and I was waiting for the big punch that he has. I was waiting for it. We didn’t see it. He was timid. He was hesitant. He still came forward, but he wasn’t overly aggressive like he was aggressively aggressive like he’s normally used to do. After the 7th or 8th round, I kind of called his bluff. Maybe this guy is everything is just playing right now. Maybe there was nothing up his sleeve, but this is boxing. Next time, if we ever get the rematch, all I can do is continue to start in round 13 and continue to keep pushing. This is not a loss for me. However, you want to look at is, this is not a loss for me. My name is out there. People love and support me. Social media, celebrities or whoever they’re saying they love me and support me. This is a new beginning for me. I’m excited about my career now. I hate to sound sour. I hate to talk about things I can’t change. But even after the knockdown, I can’t say it was a technical knockdown, because yeah, I got hit and went down. Whether I was off balance or not was my fault. I should have been in the position to take a shot and not go down. But even with the knockdown, I wasn’t really impressed with his power. I shook it off The referee wanted to wipe off my gloves. I wanted to get it on. I was surprised that’s all he had. I was expecting more. I’m so passionate because I feel like I gave my best, and people really understand what I bring to the boxing game. I didn’t really have the opportunity to show who I am. You’ve always seen the potential best, but you’ve seen it flourish, because I haven’t had the opportunities yet. I didn’t have the best opponents until I fought Peter Quillin and Giovanni Lorenzo and people finally started to realize that this guy is a great fighter,” said Jacobs.
Jacobs sounds like he’s got a bad case of sour grapes when it comes to his loss to Golovkin. The best thing that Jacobs can do is put the loss out of his mind, stop thinking about it, and move on with his career. Jacobs had his chance and he blew it. By Jacobs not fighting now, he’s wasting time. Golovkin already has a fight scheduled against Saul Canelo Alvarez on September 16, but Jacobs has nothing scheduled. It looks like Jacobs going to be out of the ring for a significant amount of time. That’s not good news for the 30-year-old Jacobs, because he may not have much to show for 2017 other than his loss to Golovkin if he doesn’t push his promoter to schedule him a fight against someone. There are other good fighters out there in the boxing world besides GGG. Jacobs needs to get busy and start fighting them. He need to stop gripping about his loss.