By Allan Fox: The World Boxing Association has made the Daniel Jacobs vs. Maciej Sulecki fight a final WBA middleweight title eliminator for April 28. The winner of the fight will be the WBA mandatory for the winner of the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin 2 fight.
Golovkin already has two mandatory challengers in place waiting for a title shot against him in IBF No.1 Sergey Derevyanchenko and WBC #1 Jermall Charlo. If Jacobs beats Sulecki on April 28, then that’ll add is name to the list of mandatories Golovkin to have to face if he wants to keep his middleweight titles. Golovkin can bypass those mandatory challengers for his next fight on May 5th and in his next fight after that if he can face WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders in a unification match.
It’s even possible that the sanctioning bodies will agree to wait while Golovkin eventually faces Canelo in 2019 if he receives a suspension on April 18 at his heading with the Nevada Athletic Commission.
Jacobs is promoted by Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, and he’s in a hurry to get him a fight against the winner of the Canelo vs. Golovkin 2 fight. Hearn isn’t the type of promoter that wants his fighters to wait for a long time for them to get title shots. Golovkin already beat Jacobs last year by a 12 round unanimous decision in March. Some boxing fans thought Jacobs won, but most think he didn’t do enough. Golovkin boxed Jacobs and made the fight harder on himself than it would have been had he used the Dmitry Piirog blueprint by going after Jacobs with power shots. Jacobs has had problems taking hard shots during his career, and Golovkin didn’t take advantage of that. If a rematch takes place, Golovkin will likely apply more pressure on Jacobs to make sure the fight doesn’t go to the scorecards like the previous one in March 2017.
The last fight with Jacobs didn’t make Golovkin a lot of money, and it was a very difficult one for his promoter to negotiate. Golovkin missed out on another fight date due to the extended amount of time the negotiations took. It might not be even worth it for Golovkin to face Jacobs again, because he’s not popular and it’ll likely take ages to get the fight put together. The last thing Golovkin needs to do is waste 6 months trying to negotiate a fight with Jacobs.
Golovkin might not ever defend his titles against those fighters lining up to face him. Golovkin can make more money fighting Saunders, Canelo and then moving up to super middleweight to face the winner of the World Boxing Super series between George Groves and Callum Smith. Jacobs, 31, is a good fighter, but Golovkin won’t make any money fighting him. Golovkin’s money fights for the immediate future is Canelo, Saunders and the Groves-Smith winner. Chris Eubank Jr. vs. Golovkin would probably be a fight that would make some money if Eubank Jr. can at least get one winder under his belt to rebuild his career following his loss to Groves.