Why Golovkin does NOT have to face Jacobs Again

Boxingnews24.com

By Justin Graham: Gennady “GGG” Golovkin has gone from being a relatively unknown former Olympic silver medalist from Kazakhstan in 2012 to one of boxing’s biggest stars and top pound-for-pound fighters in just a few years. However, for Golovkin, like most foreign fighters that come to America, there will always be the group of fans, mostly casual boxing fans, who will seemingly never give him his due credit for anything. A lot of those fans’ are now saying that Daniel Jacobs beat Golovkin and that he should get an immediate rematch. No, GGG does not have to face Danny Jacobs again.

First off, I am not saying that Golovkin will not end up facing Jacobs again in the future. If they were to have an immediate rematch and fight again in a few months, I would have no problem with that. However, I do believe that Golovkin does not HAVE to fight Jacobs again if he does not want to.

If GGG fought Jacobs again in June, or September, or whenever, and were to lose, then all the haters would have their cake and Canelo Alvarez would have dodged the biggest bullet of his career. If GGG were to beat Jacobs a second time in a similar fashion (12 round decision), he still would not get the credit he deserves anyways. Golovkin turns 35 on April 8th. In any major sport, 35 is considered old. Sure, boxing is just as much mental as it is physical, but when you are facing top competition, age is definitely a factor, and we saw that against Jacobs.

To put things in perspective, the best middleweight of all time, “Marvelous” Marvin Hagler, retired before he turned 34. Mike Tyson lost 3 of his final 4 fights by knockout after age 35. “Sugar” Ray Leonard never won a fight after age 33. Oscar De La Hoya was never quite the same after beating Felix Sturm in 2004 at age 31. Are there top level fighters who had success after their mid-30s? Of course. But science tells us that after age 30 elite athletes begin to decline physically.

In other words, Golovkin has to start looking at his age and thinking about smart fights as he gets closer to retirement. GGG beat Jacobs clearly. It was certainly the toughest fight of his career, but CompuBox (which tends to favor boxers over punchers) had Golovkin landing 56 more punches over the course of the fight; that is 4-5 punches per round on average. Also taking into account the fact that GGG scored a knockdown and was the aggressor and applying pressure for most of the fight, and it is actually very easy to score the fight 115-112 or even 116-111 for Golovkin.

Remember, in order to take the belts from an undefeated champion, you have to convincingly and clearly beat them. Look at Daniel Jacobs face, and then look at Gennady’s after the fight. In my opinion, Kell Brook hurt GGG more than Danny did. Jacobs did an excellent job of moving both his feet and his head in order to avoid getting hit with too many clean power shots, but in the process he was hit by over a hundred of Golovkin’s power jabs. So no, Jacobs did not win. We are just so used to Golovkin running over opponents that when we see a fighter NOT get knocked out in devastating fashion, it seems weird.

Back to the age discussion. The bottom line is that if Golovkin wants to leave a legit, lasting legacy on boxing, his best bet is to unify the titles at 160 pounds. Only three fighters have held all four major titles at middleweight in the past 35 or so years: Marvin Hagler, Bernard Hopkins, and Jermain Taylor (who beat Hopkins in 2005). Hopkins holds the record for consecutive middleweight title defenses with 20.

Ponder this for a moment: if Golovkin were to beat Billy Joe Saunders (who has the WBO belt) and unify the titles, and then move on and defeat Canelo Alvarez, he would have tied the record for consecutive middleweight title defenses AND have unified the titles at middleweight. At that point, he would definitely be considered a Top 2 or 3 middleweight champion of all time. If GGG wants the best chance to reach that status in boxing history, he does not need to waste time by fighting Daniel Jacobs again, an opponent he clearly beat. At this point in his career and with an offensive fighting style, age is arguably Golovkin’s biggest opponent.