Hearn doubts he can make Saunders vs. Jacobs

By Boxing News - 12/21/2017 - Comments

Image: Hearn doubts he can make Saunders vs. Jacobs

By Dan Ambrose: Daniel Jacobs’ promoter Eddie Hearn doubts that he’ll be able to put a fight together between him and WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders because of the huge amount of money he’ll want to come to New York to fight him in the U.S.

Hearn figures that now that Saunders has beaten Lemieux, he’s going to want a lot of money to fight anyway. Coming up with the amount of money to lure Saunders into taking a fight with Jacobs might prove to be impossible for Hearn. If the fight did get made, Hearn would want it to take place in the U.S. That’s not surprising, because Hearn isn’t going to want to put his fighter Jacobs at a disadvantage by him having to fly over to the UK to fight Saunders in front of his own fans.

“Jacobs is making a lot of money in America,” said Hearn to Fighthype. “Billy Joe is now going to be making millions of dollars for his fights over here. So, I don’t know. It’s going to be a difficult one, not because of Frank Warren. I don’t really think that’s the problem. It’s who puts the money up is the problem. I don’t think I could come up with the money to bring Billy to the U.S, because he’s going to want millions of dollars, so I don’t think that’s there for him yet,” said Hearn.

It might take even more money than it normally would due to the risk involved for Saunders to take on Jacobs. Saunders wants the winner of the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin fight, and he thinks he’s going to get it. If it’s Canelo, he’s kidding himself. Canelo probably won’t to fight Saunders, especially if he puts in another performance like his last one against David Lemieux.

Saunders will be fighting in the spring against a top contender. His promoter Frank Warren won’t say who it’ll be, but it’s not likely to be IBF super middleweight champion Caleb Truax. Warren doesn’t want Saunders to move up to 168 and then have to worry about making it back down to 160 for a fight against the Canelo-GGG winner.

“I’m sure he [Jacobs] would like to fight [Saunders],” said Warren about Jacobs. “His last fight was in his hometown. It didn’t sell 2000 tickets.”

As you can see, there doesn’t appear to be any interest at all in Saunders or his promoter Warren in making the Jacobs fight. It’s not surprising. Jacobs is too dangerous for his own good.

“I’m the champion. Why would I want to go to New York,” said Saunders about fighting Jacobs in New York. “I just went to Canada. Why would I want to go to New York? I don’t need to go over to New York. I’m the champion. What does he bring to the table? He has an English promoter, because the Americans don’t want him. He’s a good fighter, but he doesn’t sell in America. He certainly isn’t going to sell in England. I want Golovkin or Canelo,” said Saunders.

It sounds like Saunders is searching for any reason why he shouldn’t have to fight Jacobs. He’s just lucky the World Boxing Organization didn’t make Jacobs his mandatory challenger rather than David Lemieux. If that had been Jacobs inside the ring with Saunders last Saturday night, he would have had a good chance of defeating him.

“What does Danny Jacobs bring to the table?” said Warren. “If we did do it, it would be over here. He’d be a challenger. It would be a voluntary defense. If the fight suits us, we’ll make it. It’s something to consider.”