Daniel Jacobs vs. Spike O’Sullivan not happening says Hearn

By Boxing News - 01/31/2018 - Comments

Image: Daniel Jacobs vs. Spike O’Sullivan not happening says Hearn

By Marcus Richardson: Eddie Hearn says middleweight contender Daniel Jacobs won’t be fighting Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan next, and he plans on saving the fight for a later time. Hearn was trying to put together then Jacobs vs. O’Sullivan fight for April 28 on HBO Boxing at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

The highly rated Jacobs (33-2, 29 KOs) needs a well-known opponent that can challenge him and make it interesting for the HBO viewing audience. Unfortunately, something has gotten in the way of making the fight. Hearn isn’t saying what’s holding back the negotiations from getting the fight signed, but he’s not blaming the 33-year-old O’Sullivan (27-2, 19 KOs).

”I’ll save it for another time but it’s terrible really – not Spikes fault,” Hearn said.

This puts Hearn in a tough position where he’ll need to move quickly to try and find a suitable opponent for Jacobs to fight on April 28th. HBO is going to want a quality opponent for Jacobs to fight in the main event of the April 28th card. Hearn might need to go after one of the better contenders in the division if he wants to get someone that will please HBO.

Hearn has the money to try and lure someone better than O’Sullivan like unbeaten Sergiy Derevyanchenko or Andy Lee. Either of those guys would be excellent choices for Jacobs. Tureano Johnson would be a good option as well. He’s coming off of a thrilling fight with Derevyanchenko last summer. Johnson was stopped in the 12th round, but he made it a really exciting fight before losing.

It’s important that Jacobs get a good opponent, because he’s in the main event on HBO once again. In Jacobs’ last fight on HBO, he was matched against fringe contender Luis Arias last November, and the fight was a boring 12 round decision win for Jacobs. This was a main event fight on HBO, and it looked more like a match worthy of an off TV fight. HBO signed Jacobs to a multi-fight agreement with their network, and he’s already burned through one disappointing match. If Hearn can’t find someone good for Jacobs to fight for his April 28th fight, then it would be his second disappointing fight.

O’Sullivan recently rejuvenated his career with a 7th round knockout win over contender Antoine Douglas on December 16th on the undercard of the Billy Joe Saunders vs. David Lemieux card on HBO at the in Quebec, Canada. O’Sullivan came into that fight as the underdog, and he took out Douglas after knocking him down hard in the 7th.

Since Jacob’s fight will be on HBO, it’s going to have to be a top contender that Hearn will need to get.

Here are possible options for Jacobs’ fight on 4/28:

• Curtis Stevens

• Jason Quigley

• Demetrius Andrade

• Hassan N’Dam

• Tureano Johnson

• Rob Brant

• Andy Lee

There probably aren’t a lot of promoters that are going to want to put their fighters in with a dangerous puncher like Daniel Jacobs. It’s a risky fight and likely not worth the small amount of money that will be offered to them. You have to remember that Jacobs isn’t a world champion any longer, and he’s not popular with the casual boxing fans. Jacobs’ claim to fame is losing a close 12 round decision to Gennady Golovkin. Most promoters would prefer to have their fighters take sure thing fights to get slowly pushed up the rankings until they’re given nice paydays.

Fighting a dangerous guy like Jacobs for less than life changing money isn’t something that the other fighters are going to want to agree to. If Hearn can overpay one of the contenders by giving him an absurd amount of money to fight Jacobs, then he should be able to get someone to agree to the fight.