By Allan Fox: Former WBA middleweight champion Danny “Miracle Man” Jacobs (32-2, 29 KOs) likely won’t be fighting on the undercard of the Deontay Wilder vs. Luis Ortiz card on November 4, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN Boxing.
It’s unclear what the reason is for the 30-year-old Jacobs not to be fighting on the card. Jacobs hasn’t fought since March 18 of this year in losing a close 12 round unanimous decision to Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. With no fights scheduled, Jacobs looks like he may be out of the ring for the remainder of 2017 if he doesn’t wind up on the Wilder-Ortiz card.
”There has been talk he might be on that card but nothing is set and yesterday I heard he actually probably won’t be on that card. But we’ll see,” said Rafael at ESPN.com about Jacob.
Jacobs had said that he would like to fight Golovkin in a rematch or Saul Canelo Alvarez, but he’s not likely to be getting a fight against either of them anytime soon. Staying inactive could hurt Jacobs’ chances of ever getting either of those guys to give him a shot. Golden Boy Promotions aren’t going to take risks by putting Canelo in with a big middleweight like Jacobs. Canelo has too much to lose in his boxing career for him to risk getting inside the ring with a knockout artist like Jacobs.
Jacobs was hoping to use his performance against Golovkin as a springboard for other big fights in the middleweight division. Jacobs won over a lot of boxing fans with the way he fought. Jacobs needs to start fighting the best available contenders if he can get any of them to fight him, which I seriously doubt.
#TeamJacobs💪 #BrooklynBoxing pic.twitter.com/Yk4VQAmMYg
— Brooklyn Boxing (@Brooklyn_Boxing) September 19, 2017
Jacobs is currently rated #2 WBC, #5 IBF, #5 WBA, #5 WBO. He just needs to stay busy with his career for him to keep getting moved up. As dangerous as Jacobs is, he’s probably not going to get any of the top guys to fight him other than Golovkin, but that rematch isn’t likely to happen until 2018 at the very earliest. Golovkin wants to fight Canelo again, and that may keep him out of the ring for the remainder of this year. Jacobs isn’t ranked high enough with the World Boxing Organization to get a title shot against WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders. It’s too bad the IBF didn’t rank Jacobs higher for him to face Sergey Derevyanchenko. That would have been a real war. Derevyanchenko looked good in beating Tureano Johnson.
The 6’1” Jacobs has the size to fight guys in the super middleweight division. He might want to do that if he can’t get any of the top middleweight contenders to fight him. Jacobs walking into the ring at a rumored 180+ pounds for his fight against Golovkin might scare off other promoters from wanting to match their fighters against him. If the promoters believe that Jacobs is going to enter the ring looking like a light heavyweight, they’re probably not going to want to risk their fighters against him unless they can get a rehydration clause in the contract to limit how much weight Jacobs can gain back.