Danny Jacobs signs with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom

By Boxing News - 09/23/2017 - Comments

Image: Danny Jacobs signs with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom

By Allan Fox: In a real surprising move, former WBA World middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs (32-2, 29 KOs) has signed with British promoter Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Sport promotions. Jacobs is known in the U.S. following his close 12 round unanimous decision loss to middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin last March on HBO PPV.

Hearn says he wants to work with Jacobs, 30, in the U.S. If Jacobs is going to stay in the U.S, then Hearn will likely try and use his pull to get him a rematch with Golovkin and/or a fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. That may be difficult to do, as Golden Boy Promotions have been really careful in how they match their young 27-year-old star.

Jacobs will likely need to wait until after Canelo and Golovkin fight each other in a rematch before he has a chance to fight either of them. Golovkin wants to fight Canelo one or two more times, and then win the WBO middleweight title. What GGG’s plans after that are is the big question.

“Danny Jacobs signs with us,” said Hearn to HBO Boxing.

Jacobs says he’ll be fighting in November against a still to be determined opponent in the U.S. It’s going to need to be someone good for him to put pressure on Canelo and Golovkin to fight him. Jacobs can’t go back to fighting the Sergio Mora type fighters again.

“The plan is to come back in November and display my talent,” said Jacobs.

If Jacobs moves over to the UK to fight, he’ll find that there’s no too many fighters to battle it out with in that part of the world. The UK has WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders and that’s it for the 160-lb. division. If Jacobs can’t get Canelo or Golovkin to fight him, then he might be wise to move up to 168 to go after British super middleweights Callum Smith, George Groves, James DeGale and Chris Eubank Jr. Those are all good fighters that Jacobs would have the size to compete against. Jacobs is as big as them, but he chooses to melt down to fight smaller guys at middleweight.

Jacobs won the WBA title middleweight title in 2014 after beating Jarrod Fletcher. Jacobs held onto the WBA title for 4 uneventful defenses over weak opposition before facing Golovkin on March 18 and losing the title by a 12 round unanimous decision. A lot of boxing fans thought Jacobs did enough to beat Golovkin. However, Jacobs was knocked own in round 4, and dominated in the first 6 rounds. In the second half of the fight, Jacobs was staggered in round 10.

The judges still gave Jacobs 5 of the last 6 rounds with some very generous scoring for him, but he came up short. What’s unclear how long Jacobs is going to be able to make weight for the 160-lb. division? Jacobs was rumored to be over 180 pounds for the Golovkin fight. If Jacobs is going to continue to be that big for his middleweight fights, he could eventually reach a point where he starts getting drained in making the weight.