Hearn says Daniel Jacobs might invite Jermall Charlo into ring after Sulecki fight

By Allan Fox: Daniel Jacobs’ promoter Eddie Hearn reportedly is saying he may invite interim WBC middleweight champion Jermall Charlo (27-0, 21 KOs) into the ring for a face-to-face confrontation this Saturday night if he beats Maciej Sulecki (26-0, 10 KO) in their fight on HBO Boxing at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

If Jacobs is serious about wanting to fight Charlo, it’ll be a good thing for the boxing world. One of these two guys will be eliminated in serious discussion o fight the winner of the Gennady Golovkin vs. Saul Canelo Alvarez fight.

Jacobs and his promoter Hearn believe that they should be the ones that take the fight winner of the Canelo-Golovkin 2 fight. But the problem is, Jacobs hasn’t done anything special since his 12 round unanimous decision loss to GGG last year in March. Jacobs fought defensively the entire fight and lost the fight because he wasn’t fighting hard in that fight.

Golovkin won the fight because Jacobs ran from him for the first 6 rounds and didn’t try and put up a good fight. In Jacobs’ fight since then, he beat fringe contender Luis Arias by a 12 round unanimous decision last November in his first fight of a multi-fight contract with HBO. The fight was dull, and you have to wonder what HBO executives were thinking as they watched the Jacobs-Arias fight, since they were the ones that signed him up. Hopefully, Jacobs puts in a better effort against Sulecki on Saturday night so that the boxing fans have something to see instead of a lot of running and clinching for 12 rounds.

It’ll be interesting to see if Jacobs does invite Charlo into the ring after the fight with Sulecki. WBC heavyweight champion Deontay ‘Bronze Bomber’ Wilder says he heard that he wouldn’t be allowed into the ring for Hearn fighter IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua after his fight with WBO champion Joseph Parker on March 31 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. So it’s unclear why there would be a difference between Joshua and Jacobs when it comes to fighters being allowed into the ring. Is this a rule that only negatively impacts Wilder?

Jacobs (33-2, 29 KOs) recently had words with Charlo in a confrontation in the hallway at the Barclays Center. Jacobs feels that he put Charlo in his place during that meeting. Jacobs says he wants to fight Charlo next if he can’t get a fight against the winner of the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin rematch. Given that those two aren’t likely to face each other until September 15, it gives Jacobs a lot of time to wait before he finds out if the winner of the Canelo-Golovkin 2 fight is going to want to face him next.

”He did exactly what we all expected him to do with the level of opposition,” Jacobs said about Jermall Charlo’s 2nd round knockout victory over Hugo Centeno Jr. last Saturday night. ”He’s over that hump where he’s not a scrub, but let’s see what he does against real competition.”

If Jacobs does take on Charlo, he may be sorry he did so, because he’s looking very good right now with the way he’s knocking guys out left and right.

Jacobs might not get past the 28-year-old Sulecki on Saturday in their fight on HBO. That could be a very hard fight for Jacobs. Sulecki looked very good in stopping Centeno Jr. in the 10th round in 2016. Sulecki is coming off of a 10 round unanimous decision win over former WBA light middleweight champion Jack Culcay last October. Sulecki did a better job defeating Culcay than Demetrius Andrade did earlier last year in March in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision. Sulecki is a good fighter with better power than his record would have you believe. Jacobs doesn’t like to get hit, and he doesn’t always do well against aggressive fighters.

Right now, Sulecki is fighting at a high level with a lot of confidence. He’s not someone going into the Jacobs fight like he’s scared the way that we saw with Peter Quillin and Golovkin. Sulecki has a ton of confidence, and he’s ready for his fight 100 percent.

Charlo, 27, is younger than the 31-year-old Jacobs, and he looks like the better fighter of the two. Even when Jacobs was younger, he never looked as good as Charlo did last Saturday night. Earlier in Jacobs’ career when he was facing marginal opposition, he was a big puncher, who looked to knockout his opposition quickly. But ever since Jacobs’ 5th round knockout loss to Dmitry Pirog in 2010, he’s been cautious in his fights.

One of the rare exceptions in the last 8 years of Jacobs’ career where he fought aggressively early on was in his 1st round knockout win over Peter Quillin in December 2015. Aside from his loss to Golovkin, Jacobs has had a couple of soft opponents in Sergio Mora and Luis Arias in the last two years. Sulecki is a big upgrade from those guys, which is why it’s not a sure thing whether Jacobs will win this fight.