By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs (34-2, 29 KOs) and Sergiy Derevyanchenko (12-0, 10 KOs) are heading for November 10 for their clash for the vacant International Boxing Federation 160-pound title on HBO at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York.
The November 10 date still isn’t official as of yet, but that’s the date Jacobs’ and Derevyanchenko’s management are working on, according to Dan Rafael.
This fight won’t be a televised on DAZN despite Jacobs’ promoter Eddie Hearn’s hard push to try and find as much talent as he can to have his fighters compete on that streaming service. Jacobs, 31, is still under contract with HBO.
Jacobs’ promoter Eddie Hearn wanted the fight to take place at Madison Square Garden in New York, according to Rafael.
Both fighters have been out of the ring for a while, and they still have four more months of inactivity before they face each other. 2008 Olympian Derevyanchenko last fought in March in defeating journeyman Dashon Johnson by a 6th round stoppage. That was a tune-up fight that Derevyanchenko, then the mandatory for IBF middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, took.
Derevyanchenko was criticized by a lot of boxing fans for taking such a low level opponent given his high ranking with the International Boxing Federation. Derevyanchenko’s last real fight against a contender came last year in August with his 12th round knockout win over Tureano Johnson on August 25, 2017. That was a good performance by Derevyanchenko against a top level contender.
There are a lot of questions about whether Derevyanchenko can handle a talented middleweight like Jacobs. Derevyanchenko hasn’t fought anyone good other than Tureano during his four-year pro career. The rest of the fighters that Derevyanchenko has faced have been lower level guys like Mike Guy, Jessie Nicklow, Vladine Biosse, Sam Soliman, Kermahl Russell and Alan Campa.
The good news for Derevyanchenko is he’s getting Jacobs at the right time in his career. Jacobs hasn’t looked great in his last two fights since losing a 12 round unanimous decision to Gennady Golovkin. Although Jacobs wasn’t hit with a lot of hard shots from GGG, he was hit enough shots to apparently do damage, as he’s not looked like the same guy since then. Jacobs has won his two fights in beating Luis Arias and Maciej Sulecki.
The only thing that separated Jacobs and Sulecki was a 12th round knockdown for Jacobs. Other than that, the fight looked like it was close enough to be a draw. Two of the judges scored it fairly wide for Jacobs by he scores 116-111 and 117-110. The third judge seemed to be more alert than the other two in scoring it 115-112 for Jacobs. The performance by Jacobs was one of the worst of his career, and he was fortunate to get a victory. If Derevyanchenko can fight on the same level as he did against Tureano Johnson, then he’s going to win the fight without any problems.
Jacobs’ promoter Hearn is hoping that the Golovkin vs. Canelo 2 winner will want to return to fight Jacobs if he gets past Derevyanchenko. Hearn figures that the Golovkin-Canelo winner will care enough about the IBF title to want to fight Jacobs for the belt. Golovkin might be interested in going back after his IBF title, but Canelo probably won’t. Golovkin’s likely next fight after the Canelo rematch will be against WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders. GGG wants that WBO belt, and he’s been
interested in shutting up Saunders for quite some time. Facing him next after Canelo will likely be his next move.
Derevyanchenko’s management pushed hard in putting pressure on the IBF to have them to mandate a date of August 4 for him to defend his title against him. Golovkin couldn’t take the fight because of the scheduled September 15 rematch with Canelo. It would be impossible for Triple G to face Derevyanchenko on August 4 and then return to the ring a little over a month later to face Canelo. The move really didn’t help Derevyanchenko, as he now has to face Jacobs in a fight that won’t attract nearly as much interest as a match against GGG.
If Derevyanchenko’s management has stayed patient and waited for Golovkin to make his defense of his IBF title after his rematch with Canelo, they would have gotten the much better fight. As things are now, Derevyanchenko has to beat the always dangerous Jacobs in order to win the IBF title, and there’s no guarantee that he’ll be able to win that fight. Derevyanchenko is a fighter with slow hand speed, and movement. He’s not going to be able to beat Jacobs to the punch. Even if Derevyanchenko wins the fight, it’s unclear whether the Canelo-Golovkin winner will want to fight for the IBF title, as it’s small money fight. Canelo and Golovkin can make better money fighting other guys like Ryota Murata or Jermall Charlo. Golovkin will likely fight Saunders, and then Murata after that. The Jacobs vs. Derevyanchenko is almost surely going to be forgotten by Canelo and GGG.