Jacobs-Derevyanchenko battle for vacant IBF middleweight title on Oct.27

By Boxing News - 09/01/2018 - Comments

Image: Jacobs-Derevyanchenko battle for vacant IBF middleweight title on Oct.27

By Allan Fox: Sergiy Derevyancnenko won’t let his friendship with Daniel Jacobs get in the way of him capturing the vacant IBF middleweight title on October 27 in their fight on HBO Championship Boxing at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Derevyanchenko (12-0, 10 KOs) is finally getting his chance at winning a world title after turning pro four years ago in 2014, and he doesn’t want to blow it by losing to former WBA middleweight champion Jacobs (34-2, 29 KOs).

This is an odd fight in some ways, as Jacobs and Derevyanchenko have the same trainer in Andre Rozier as well as the same manager in Keith Connolly. They’ve sparred often. Derevyanchenko was Jacobs’ sparring partner in getting him ready for his fight against Gennady Golovkin last year. Jacobs still wound up losing the fight, but he gave a good account of himself in losing a 12 round decision. Rozier will be working Jacobs’ corner for the fight rather than Derevyanchenko. If Derevyanchenko wins the fight, then it’ll be interesting to see if he keeps Rozier or if he moves on to another trainer.

The fight was officially announced last Friday between Jacobs and the 32-year-old Derevyanchenko. The two will square off for Gennady Golovkin’s old title. It could have been Derevyanchenko fighting GGG for the belt instead of Jacobs, but the Ukrainian fighter and his management wanted to press the issue of having Triple G defend the belt by August 4, which was impossible for him to do with him scheduled to face Saul Canelo Alvarez in a rematch on September 15. Derevyanchenko has a lesser fight against Jacobs, but with plenty of risk and likely less money involved. However, Derevyanchenko has a much better chance of beating Jacobs than he would Golovkin, so it’s a tradeoff.

The 5’9” Derevyanchenko struggled in the amateurs and in the World Series of Boxing in fights against guys with better hand speed and size than himself. Jacobs is huge at 6’0’ for a middleweight, and he’s got better hand speed than Derevyanchenko. This is going to be a fight in which Derevyanchenko is going to have to figure out how to neutralize the speed of Jacobs and the more importantly his super middleweight size. Jacobs looked huge when he fought Golovkin last year after rehydrating.

“I’m a step away from my dream, and I will not miss this chance,” said Derevyanchenko to ESPN.com. “From my time in the amateurs to my pro career, this has been a long time coming for me. I’ve beaten everyone they’ve put in front of me to earn this shot.”

It hasn’t taken Derevyanchenko all that long to get a title shot. He’s only been a pro for four years, and that’s nothing compared to the many contenders that often toil away for as long as 10 years before they finally get their first title shot. Derevyanchenko has beaten everyone that has been put in front of him, but he’s only fought one good opponent during his career in Tureano Johnson, who he stopped in the 12th round in 2017. The remainder of Derevyanchenko’s opponents has been journeyman level fighters or older, injured fighters like then 42-year-old Sam Soliman. Derevyanchenko has beaten all the guys that his management has matched him against, but he’s not been put in with anyone particularly dangerous to where you would say that he was matched tough. The only tough guy that Derevyanchenko has a faced is Tureano Johnson, and that was after he’d been knocked out by Curtis Stevens.

”Having trained with Danny, I know him very well and we are friends,” Derevyanchenko said.

”However, it will be strictly business in the ring. I will not be denied. The belt will be mine.”

Derevyanchenko had to have learned what Jacobs’ weaknesses are from the 300+ rounds of sparring that the two have had as gym-mates. Jacobs hasn’t looked good since getting worked over by Golovkin in 2017. Jacobs’ last two fighs since the loss to GGG have been down disappointing efforts against Luis Arias and Maciej Sulecki. Jacobs won both fights, but was taken the distance and didn’t look like the same fighter who had knocked out Peter Quillin in the 1st round in 2015.

Derevyanchenko was a good amateur while in Ukraine. He fought in the 2008 Olympics. He finished his amateur career with a 390-20 record. That’s an impressive record and it shows how good Derevyanchenko was when he was fighting back in Ukraine. At the pro level, he hasn’t fought anyone yet to get a much attention from the U.S boxing fans. In facing Jacobs, Derevyanchenko will get his first true test of his career. If he can pass it and win the International Boxing Federation middleweight crown, it may open up doors for bigger fights against the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin 2 winner.

Derevyanchenko and Jacobs will be fighting on October 27 on HBO at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT. The winner gets the IBF title, and the loser goes back to the drawing board to try and restart their careers. Jacobs already lost to GGG last year, but his new promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing USA has been on a salvage mission in matching him against Sulecki and Luis Arias. Hearn says that he believes that Jacobs is the best fighter in the middleweight division. I don’t know if Hearn actually believes what he says, because he had the chance to put Jacobs in a real test against Jermall Charlo and he didn’t do it.

Golovkin was stripped by the IBF on June 6 after he failed to commit to defending the belt against IBF mandatory Derevyanchenko. It’s not that Golovkin didn’t want to make a defense against Derevyanchenko. It was more of a case of Golovkin being more interested in fighting Canelo for big money rather than taking Derevyanchenko in a small money fight that would give him only $1 million to $2 million. Golovkin will make much more than that fighting Canelo. Golovkin may end up facing the winner of the Jacobs vs. Derevyanchenko fight at some point if he gets past Canelo on September 15. Jacobs’ promoter Eddie Hearn is really hoping that he wins the fight and the Canelo-GGG 2 winner faces him rather than WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders.

”I’m preparing myself to be in an incredible fight with Sergey Derevyanchenko. I’ve always felt that I was the best middleweight in the world,” Jacobs said via ESON.com. ”With this type of fight, I’m that much closer to all that glory and to proving to the world I am the best.”

Jacobs believes that he deserved the win over Golovkin last year. The overall belief by the boxing public is Jacobs didn’t do enough to get the victory due to him getting knocked down in round 4 and getting dominated in the first six rounds. Jacobs doesn’t care. He still thinks he won. Golovkin will have to knock Jacobs out if he ever faces him again, because he might continue to say he deserves the win if it goes to the scorecards. Golovkin didn’t pressure Jacobs like Dmitry Pirog did in stopping him in the 5th round in 2010. Even in that fight, Jacobs was complaining in saying that the bout shouldn’t have been stopped in the 5th round. Referee Robert Byrd stopped the fight after Jacobs was knocked down by Pirog in the 5th. Byrd saw that Jacobs was down on the canvas, flat on his back with both eyes closed. Byrd did what any trainer would do in stopping the fight after seeing a seemingly hurt Jacobs down. Jacobs suddenly both eyes and jumped to his feet as if nothing had happened, but it was too late. Byrd had already stopped the fight.

The undercard for the Jacobs-Derevyanchenko fight will have WBA World super featherweight champion Alberto Machado defending his belt against Yuandale Evans in the co-feature bout. There’s also Heather Hardy facing Shelly Vincent in a rematch for the vacant women’s featherweight belt. However, that fight won’t be shown on the televised portion of the HBO card.