DANNY JACOBS TARGETING APRIL RING RETURN, WANTS SAUNDERS-LEMIEUX WINNER

Boxing Talk

By G. Leon

GL: Congrats on your victory over Luis Arias. Can you give us some thoughts on your performance? After the fight I gave myself like a C, but after watching it on tape and studying it, I give myself like a B, maybe B+. I feel like I was definitely sharp, but I realize that I have to step my game up when a guy is grappling and holding just to survive, I have to avoid those clinches while still being able to get my power shots off. Those are some of the things that I take that I know I can fix. I believe my wind was good, I was able to fight all twelve rounds. I felt my jab was pretty sharp and my combinations were flowing. The only two things I would change is, knocking the guy out by taking my time a little bit more, and putting my punches together to set it up instead of forcing it.

GL: Are you disappointed you didn’t stop him?

Danny Jacobs: “A little bit, I’m not going to lie I’m a a little bit disappointed I ain’t stop him. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that he talked a lot before the fight, and that was the main reason that I wanted to stop him so badly. But I accomplished my goal of showing him that there’s levels to this game and I think the difference in our skills was pretty evident on fight night.”

GL: What are you hoping this win leads to?

DJ: “I’m hoping that it leads to one of the top guys stepping up and wanted to get inside the ring with me. Everybody views me as a knockout artist. Now, with my last performance, they clearly see I have a lot of skill and diversity to my game, so hopefully some of the other top fighters won’t see me as this big threat who can knock them out as opposed to boxing them. That’s clearly the reason I haven’t been in there with these guys already and it’s the reason you don’t hear them being vocal about me is because they view me as a big threat. I’m just hoping that some of these guys are willing to step inside the ring now that they know I’m not the biggest KO artist in the world.”

GL: Obviously if you had it your way you’d be fighting GGG or Canelo night, but since that’s not a realistic possibility at this point, what fight do you want the most?

DJ: “The winner of David Lemiuex and Saunders. I think that I will be available to fight in April and I think that gives them enough time to give them that win and being that GGG and Canelo is going to be happening in May, it gives me a chance to get another belt and show people who is really the best. I think of it as a tournament, you got the winner of Saunders-Lemieux fighting me and then you have a clear second best middleweight, because they’re going to continue to believe that the winner of GGG and Canelo is the best middleweight. But I’m just looking forward to chance to climbing these steps knowing that I’m not going to get exactly what I’m waiting for right away.”

GL: Who do you like in Saunders-Lemieux?

DJ: “I like David Lemiuex, but I don’t know if he’ll be able to deal with the speed and skill that Saunders has. I’m rooting for Lemiuex to pull off the upset, but I’m not sure how that will benefit me because then they might try to match him with Canelo, but we’ll see what happens.”

GL: Is April the target for your next fight?

DJ: “Yes, I’m expecting April. I’m not sure of the exact date, but I know it’s going to be in my hometown and it’s probably going to be a couple of weeks before the Canelo-GGG rematch, if that happens on Cinco De Mayo weekend.”

GL: I spoke with Garbriel Rosado recently and he wasn’t impressed with your performance against Arias. He said that when you’re in a showcase fight like that you’re supposed to stop the guy and he believes you made the fight a lot harder than it had to be because you could have gotten him out of there if you would have changed the speed on your punches. Is there anything you’d like to say in response?

DJ: “Me going back and forth with those kind of comments is really irrelevant because I mean, look who it’s coming from. I understand that he thinks I might be vulnerable, but this is boxing and you can’t knockout everybody, and in the case of Gabriel Rosado you can’t beat everybody, which is something he, of all people, should know by now. Did I look impressive? I felt I looked very good. The general consensus was that I looked sharp, people would have like to see me win by stoppage, but my overall performance was sharp. That’s what I continously prepare to do, be sharp and if the knockout comes, it comes.”

GL: I think you’re going to fight the winner of Saunders-Lemiuex, GGG and Canelo will fight again and Andrade will fight Rosado.

DJ: “That makes sense to me. Demetrius just came up in weight so he’s supposed to be fighting a guy like Rosado, he shouldn’t want to be jumping in with the best of the best middleweights right away. I feel like there’s steps you still have to go through and I think that’s the perfect opponent for Boo-boo.”

GL: It also wouldn’t surprise me if GGG and Canelo became a trilogy. A really lopsided win is the main thing standing in between that right now. I think everybody else is going to wind up fighting each other, while those two keep each other busy for another year.

DJ: “It’s very possible and if that happened the winner would probably sail off into the sunset never to be heard from again.” (laughs)

GL: Closing thoughts?

DJ: “I’m happy with the support that I’ve gotten from my fans before and after my last fight. I’ll be back in the ring soon, Happy Holidays to everyone and when I have my next opponent lined up for April I’ll be sure to call Boxingtalk and let y’all know what it is.”