Boxing Results: Canelo decisions Jacobs

By Boxing News - 05/05/2019 - Comments

Image: Boxing Results: Canelo decisions Jacobs

By Kenneth Friedman: WBA/WBC middleweight champion Saul Canelo Alvarez (52-1-2, 35 KOs) beat IBF champion Daniel Jacobs (35-3, 29 KOs) by a convincing 12 round unanimous decision win to capture his IBF 160-pound title on Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya was correct with his prediction of over 20,000 fans being in attendance. To be exact, there was 20,203 fans that showed up to watch Canelo battle it out. The judges had Canelo winning by the scores 115-113, 115-113, and 116-112. It could have gone the other way if Jacobs had fought a little harder, but he seemed to more interested in being cautious, and not getting caught with anything silly.

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Canelo dominated the early rounds, appearing to win five of the first six. Jacobs wasn’t fighting hard enough throughout the rounds. Jacobs would fight hard in the last 10 seconds of the round, but not during the rest of the rounds. He looked like he wasn’t willing to put in the effort needed for him to win.

Jacobs landed a good shot that snapped Canelo’s head around in the ninth. He also landed some big shots in rounds 7, 8 and 10. In the last two rounds, Jacobs looked tired, and wasn’t fighting as hard as he had in the middle rounds. Jacobs didn’t fight with the same aggression that he needed to in those rounds, and he basically let Canelo win by not fighting hard in the last two rounds. Jacobs did well in staying on the outside and using his jab to keep Canelo from anding his shots, but that didn’t workout well for him in winning rounds. Jacobs looked like he wasn’t willing to fight hard enough to get the victory. The 32-year-old Jacobs’ overall goal seemed to be not to get stopped by Canelo, and he achieved that, but he lost the fight.

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Canelo landed 188 of 466 punches for a connect percentage of 40, according to CompuBox. Jacobs connected on 13 of 649 shots for a connect percentage of 20. Jacobs spent a lot of time fighting out of the southpaw stance, and not doing well from that side. Surprisingly, Jacobs’ trainer Andre Rozier was unable to notice how ineffective he was when he was fighting southpaw, as he didn’t him to make an adjustment at any time in the fight when it came to his stance. The main thing that Rozier was trying to get Jacobs to do was to be busy when he was standing in punching range of Canelo, and not just stand there waiting for him to be first. Jacob’s did that the entire night. He would wait for Canelo to throw a punch first so that he could block it and counter. That didn’t work well for him because he got hit a lot.

The win for Canelo gives him three of the four titles at middleweight. He now holds the IBF, WBA and WBC 160-pound titles. He says he wants to fight WBO champion Demetrius Andrade to unify the division. That’s not going to be possible right away, as Andrade will be defending his WBO title against his mandatory Maciej Sulecki on June 29th. The news of their fight was announced on Saturday evening by Anrade’s promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing USA. Canelo said he could also possibly move up to 168 to unify the division up there while he waits for Andrade to get freed up. Canelo that he would be willing to fight Gennady Golovkin in a third fight if the fans want it.

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”I’m very happy with what I did,” Alvarez said after the fight. ”I thought it would be a more entertaining fight for the public, but we do what we can with what the opponent bring. We showed a lot of waist movement. We showed a lot of diversity as far as combinations of punches, and things that we do. But I think overall, it was a beautiful fight. It was going to be a difficult thing in the first few rounds in figuring it out. When he was switching from lefty to righty, we had to figure that out, but it was just a matter of time. The objective is to get the four titles, but the champion is fighting in June. I don’t know if that’s possible. We’ll just have to see what’s available, and see what’s best for us. We’ll just have to sit down with the team,” Canelo said.

The boxing public would like to see Canelo fight GGG again in September, but they would also be pleased to see him face WBO middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade or to move up to super middleweight to take on one of the champions at 168 like Callum Smith or Caleb Plant. One of those guys should be available for Canelo to fight. The way Canelo and his trainer Eddy Reynoso were talking after the fight, neither of them seemed to be interested in taking a third fight with GGG. You can understand why though. Canelo was hit a lot by Golovkin in their rematch last September. Canelo hasn’t looked as good in his last two fights since then. He’s not looked as sharp in his subsequent matches against Rocky Fielding and Jacobs. Did Golovkin take something out of Canelo with all those hard uppercuts that he tagged him with?

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”I didn’t see any emotions,” Golovkin said about the Canelo vs. Jacobs fight. ”I didn’t see anything special. It was a good sparring match. I wanted to give the audience a a real drama show. It’s the pinnacle of my career. I don’t feel like I lost it. I’m sue that’ll be a good fight,” Golovkin said about his match against Steve Rolls. ”It’ll be new changes in my style. I think Johnathon will help me improve my style. I don’t feel like I lost. This is just judges. I still have experience. I’m smarter still. I’m more smart. I have a new coach. I think this is a big step for me. Of course, I want [rematch]. I’m ready. I’m here in Vegas, because I want that flight [with Canelo]. It doesn’t matter. I feel I’m 25-years-old,” Golovkin said.

GGG summed it up well in saying that he didn’t see any emotions from Canelo and Jacobs. They both looked like they were sparring each other, and not willing to take chances. Had this been GGG in there with Canelo or Jacobs, it would have been a war from start to finish.

”I made sacrifices coming in at 173, and paid a hefty fine for it. This is boxing,” Jacobs said. ”I made sacrifices. He’s a good pot shotter. I felt like I did enough to get the victory tonight. I think I need to go back to the tapes and see what happened.”

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