Chavez Jr. wants Jacobs next, then Canelo-Golovkin winner

By Boxing News - 05/11/2017 - Comments

Image: Chavez Jr. wants Jacobs next, then Canelo-Golovkin winner

By Dan Ambrose: Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. is targeting Daniel Jacobs in his next fight, and if successful, then the winner of the September 16th match between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. Chavez (50-3-1, 32 KOs) lost to Canelo by a 12 round unanimous decision last Saturday night in a one-sided affair from start to finish.

Chavez Jr. says that he thinks Danny Jacobs beat Golovkin in their fight last March. Chavez Jr. believes he can put himself in position to fight the Canelo-Golovkin winner if he can get past Jacobs. Arranging a fight against Jacobs should be fairly easy for Chavez Jr., as they’re both managed by Al Haymon. Presumably, Jacobs would need to move up to the full weight for the 168 pound division in order for the Chavez Jr. fight to take place, because there’s little chance that the Mexican star will be able to make the 160 pound limit for the middleweight division.

It shouldn’t be a big deal for Jacobs to move up to super middleweight, because he’s had over 20 fights during his career in the 168lb division. Jacobs is essentially a super middleweight that boils down to 160 to fighter lighter guys than himself. You can argue that might be the main reason why Jacobs chose not to weigh-in for the International Boxing Federation’s fight day weigh-in for his fight against Golovkin on March 18 this year. Golovkin made the weight, but Jacobs skipped the weigh-in the morning of the fight and opted to rehydrate.

”I think it was weight and inactivity, we needed to work more speed, I felt good condition but very tied up and without strength,” Chavez Jr. said to ESPN. ”I felt like I took the 164-pound fight for the shot, but I want to show you that at 168 pounds I can be different.”

Chavez Jr. did not look good in fighting at 168 last December against fringe super middleweight contender Dominik Britsch. Chavez Jr. won the fight by a 10 round unanimous decision by the scores 99-91, 99-91 and 99-91. Chavez Jr. wasn’t facing a good fighter though. He was fighting a guy that was given a low ranking by the World Boxing Organization in their top 15. None of the other sanctioning bodies in the 168 lb. division had Britisch ranked in their top 15.

Even if Chavez Jr. were to get a miracle win over Jacobs, it’s very doubtful that Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy would dare making a second fight between him and Chavez Jr. The boxing public would likely stay away in droves at a second Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight. You can only sell mismatch once to the boxing public without potentially hurting your fighter’s band name.

Chavez Jr. doesn’t seem to understand how bad he looked against Canelo. He was terrible to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised that even Canelo lost fans because he was involved in this poor match. Golden Boy should have known better than to put this fight together. Just because you can put a mismatch together an sell it to the gullible casual boxing fans, it doesn’t mean that you should. You can argue that it’s bad business to put together a fight that is clearly going to be a mismatch. I don’t think Chavez Jr. will ever in this lifetime get a second fight against Canelo.

“I think Jacobs beat Gennady Golovkin, so it would be a good fight, to beat him and win another fight could find the winner of Canelo and Golovkin, “ said Chavez Jr. ”I know that under other conditions things could be better.”

Chavez Jr. is blaming his bad performance against Canelo on him having to make the 164.5 pound catchweight instead of acknowledging that he lost to a fighter that was far better than him at this point in his career. Chavez Jr. only came in 4 pounds under the 168 lb. upper weight limit by weighing in at 164. It’s hard to swallow the excuses that Chavez Jr. is making for his loss. Even if Chavez Jr. was weight drained for the fight, and clearly was, coming in at 4 more pounds at 168 wouldn’t have made any difference in the outcome of the fight.

Chavez Jr. was out of his class BIG TIME against Canelo. The two fighters were worlds apart in the talent level. Canelo was always going to be a better fighter than Chavez Jr. If there was a way of putting Canelo into a time machine to travel back to 2011 to fight Chavez Jr. when he was in the prime of his career, he would STILL lose to Canelo and lose badly. Canelo is far more talented fighter than Chavez Jr. could ever hope to be.

It’s a bad idea for Chavez Jr. to go from his loss to Canelo straight into a fight against Jacobs. I think it would be better for Chavez Jr. to put a few confidence builder wins under his belt before he tackles someone like Jacobs. To be sure, Chavez Jr. has the power to knockout Jacobs, because the American has shown that he doesn’t have the best chin in boxing.

Golovkin had Jacobs hurt on 3 separate occasions last March, and he was just boxing him and not trying to slug. Jacobs has been knocked out by the likes of Dmitri Pirog and hurt by Ishe Smith and Sergio Mora. Jacobs gets up when he’s knocked down, but he goes down pretty easy. What would hurt Chavez Jr’s chances of beatings Jacobs is his incredibly slow hand speed. Chavez Jr. is very slow, and Jacobs would have a field day against someone like that. Jacobs is fairly fast for a middleweight.

If Chavez Jr. came into the Jacobs fight looking as thin and emaciated as he was against Canelo, he wouldn’t last long. Chavez Jr. was VERY weak in the Canelo fight. Chavez Jr’s best shots had nothing on them. It could be that Chavez Jr. is no longer a super middleweight at this stage. To be honest, I don’t know if Chavez Jr. ever was a 168 pounder, because it’s not as if he was able to make the weight on a consistent basis in the last 4 years. In the 6 fights that Chavez Jr. has had since he moved up to the super middleweight division in 2013, he’s only made the 168 lb. limit on 3 occasions, and he’s not looked good in those fights. He looked poor.

Chavez Jr. barely beat journeyman Brian Vera by a 12 round decision in their rematch in 2014. Chavez Jr. also looked really bad in making 168 last December against Dominik Britisch. Chavez Jr. admitted after the fight that he had to pace himself because of him having problems making weight. If Chavez Jr. can’t make the 168 lb. limit without draining himself, then that’s a clear sign that he doesn’t belong at that weight. Chavez Jr. needs to move up to 175. I’d like to think that Chavez Jr. wouldn’t be drained at that weight too, but I think he would.

You have to realize that Chavez Jr’s weight soars in between fights. He was 215 when he started training for the Canelo fight. Whether Chavez Jr. wants to admit it or not, he needs to be fighting at 175 at the very least. It might be that Chavez Jr’s best weight class now is at cruiserweight with the weight limit being 200 pounds. If Chavez Jr. moves up to cruiserweight, then it won’t be nearly as hard for him to cut down from 215 to the 200 lb. limit.

In the Canelo fight, Chavez Jr. looked so bad that a lot of boxing fans believe that he should retire from boxing rather than continue on with his career, which has clearly imploded since 2012. The loss to Canelo was a terrible performance from the 30-year-old Chavez Jr., but not nearly as bad as his loss to Andrzej Fonfara in 2015. Chavez Jr. was knocked down in that fight and he quit on his stool after the 9th round. The good news is Chavez Jr. didn’t quit against Canelo.

”At 168 pounds, I want to show that it is my weight, that Saturday was a bad night,” said Chavez Jr. ”(my followers) have to understand that I made a sacrifice, it was a million dollars penalty and they (Oscar De la Hoya and Canelo) knew What was going to cost me and I was going to leave everything on the scale, it is not a pretext, I risked it and it was difficult. “

Chavez Jr. can go ahead and take on Jacobs and hope for the best, but I think it’ll end badly for him. Jacobs is a bigger puncher with more size than Canelo. I think there would be a very good chance that Chavez Jr. would be knocked out by Jacobs. We’re talking about a much faster fighter with a lot of power in Jacobs.

Chavez Jr. would be doing Jacobs a huge favor by fighting him, because it’s very unlikely that the American fighters’ promoters will match him against a big name in his next fight. Jacobs wants to fight the winner of the Canelo-Golovkin fight, but that’s highly unlikely. Jacobs doesn’t have the popularity to make him someone that Golovkin or Canelo will go out of their way to fight him. What also could hurt Jacobs’ chances of getting a fight against the winner of the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight is all the movement that he used in his fight against Triple G last March.

Jacobs was moving a lot against Triple G instead of standing and fighting. Unfortunately, when you get a reputation a mover/runner, it limits the type of fights you can get. Jacobs may have further hurt his chances for a big fight by switching to southpaw against Golovkin. Jacobs also skipped the same day weight check mandated by the IBF. Why would Canelo and Golovkin want to fight Jacobs if they’re not sure if he’s going to skip the weigh-in altogether for the fight so that he can have a huge weight advantage over them? When you use tricks like the ones that Jacobs used against Golovkin, you end up shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to getting other important fights in the future.

Chavez Jr. volunteering to fight Jacobs is a pretty strong signal that he wants to get back into a big money fight against Canelo or Golovkin in a real hurry. It’s too bad Chavez Jr. will likely lose badly to Jacobs and never get a chance to fight the Canelo-GGG winner.