Jacobs blames loss on Golovkin-Canelo interest

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By Dan Ambrose: Daniel Jacobs still doesn’t seem to have fully digested his loss to Gennady Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) last Saturday at Madison Square Garden in New York. Jacobs (32-2, 29 KOs) says he watched the fight his fight with Golovkin 3 to 4 times, and he still believes he should have been given the victory. What’s interesting is that Jacobs believes that part of the reason why he lost the fight to Golovkin was because of the huge interest in the boxing world in the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Golovkin fight, which could take place in September.

The fans do want to see that fight. It doesn’t make any sense for Jacobs to try and make a connection with his loss to Golovkin on his future fight against Canelo. Jacobs needs to give the judges credit for them scoring the fight the way saw it. The judges believe Jacobs didn’t do enough.

Looking at the round by round scoring by the judges, you can argue that they did Jacobs a favor in scoring the fight as close as they did, because he appeared to lose 5 out of the first 6 rounds, and were knocked down in round 4. The judges were kind to Jacobs in giving him most of the last three rounds of the fight from round 10 to 12. I didn’t score it that way. In the 2nd half of the fight, I had Jacobs losing rounds 8, 9, 11 and 12. Rounds 7 and 8 were close rounds. I gave Jacobs round 7 based on a late surge that he made, but Golovkin dominated 2 ½ minutes of the round.

Jacobs came in the last 30 second. He also hit Golovkin with a rabbit punch that should have led to a penalization. Jacobs got away with a clear foul. Round 8 was one-sided with Golovkin snapping Jacobs’ head back with jabs the entire round. The judges’ scoring was all over the place, but they seemed to give Jacobs benefit of the doubt in many of the rounds in which he did very little other than moving in circles and throwing limp jabs with no real power behind them. Jacobs needs to learn how to throw a jab properly, because Golovkin had a HUGE advantage in power in his jabs compared to Jacobs.

The judges didn’t see it the same way though, as they gave Golovkin a 12 round unanimous decision by he scores 115-112, 115-112 and 114-113. Jacobs’ chances of winning the fight went out the window when he decided to fight in a defensive posture for 12 rounds instead of a more aggressive style that challengers are expected to use against the A-side champions like Golovkin. Jacobs didn’t fight like a challenger. He fought like someone that was milking a large lead and trying to stall the fight out to the final bell.

Jacobs was fortunate that the judges had the fight scored as close as they did because they could have given Golovkin a wider score. 2 of the judges gave Jacobs the 12th round, and that’s not how most boxing fans saw the final round. Golovkin was the better fighter in the 12th. If the judges had scored the 12th the way that it appeared to go, Golovkin would have won even wider.

“As a fighter, I hate to be bitter, but after looking at the fight 3 or 4 different times, I truly in my heart believe I was victorious and I didn’t get the fair end of the stick,” said Jacobs to TMZ.com. “That’s not to say that was biased, but obviously we know there’s a lot of money built into Triple G and Canelo. A lot of people are looking forward to that, so that kind of made an effect on the fight. The fact that I went the distance, the fact that I hurt him, the fact that I pushed him back, and showed my boxing skills,’ said Jacobs.“

Jacobs sounds very bitter, doesn’t he? It’s OK for Jacobs to feel that he won, because many fighters tend to overestimate their own performances, but the way that he ties his loss into the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight, It sounds like a crazy reason to explain away his defeat. When you lose a fight, it’s better to take the high road and give your opponent credit in my opinion rather than coming up with wacky sounding excuses.

Jacobs is still saying that he hurt Golovkin. I didn’t see Golovkin hurt in the fight. The only one that I saw get hurt in the fight was Jacobs on two or three occasions in the fight. In round 9, Jacobs was definitely hurt. He says he was pulling his head back to avoid a punch, but it looked to me like he was hurt from a shot. Jacobs says he hurt Golovkin and was backing him up. Jacobs backed Golovkin up very little in the fight. For Jacobs to say he was backing Golovkin up, he needs to point out that he RARELY backed Golovkin up in order to describe the reality of what actually happened. Jacobs wasn’t backing Golovkin up with any regularity in the fight, because he was fighting in a timid manner most of the fight. For Jacobs to say he was backing Golovkin up, he’s kidding himself because that’s not how the fight was played out.

“I didn’t lose on the part of gaining fans and having that momentum going into my next fight coming up,” said Jacobs. “This is boxing. All I can do is looking forward to the future. I do believe I’m the best middleweight in the world. I do. I would love a rematch. I’m not sure how quickly Triple G and his team will want the rematch, but if I could get it next, I would love that,” said Jacobs.

Jacobs getting knocked down by Golovkin is not how the best middleweight in the world is supposed to look. If Jacobs is really the best middleweight in the world, he should have stayed on his feet and gone after Golovkin. We didn’t see that from Jacobs. We saw him knocked down and trying to keep from getting hit most of the fight.

I don’t think Jacobs’ performance against Golovkin was a very exciting one. It might have won Jacobs some new boxing fans, but I doubt that it won a lot of fans. I think Kell Brook fought a more exciting fight against Golovkin than Jacobs, and he’s a welterweight. Brook showed more courage against Golovkin. The guy that really fought well against Golovkin was Kassim Ouma in 2011. He stood and fought Golovkin in a war. That was an exciting fight. If you compare how Ouma fought Golovkin to how Jacobs did, it’s like night and day. Ouma made it really exciting. Jacobs was pretty boring to watch because he was just spoiling most of the fight throwing very few power shots. He just looked scared. Jacobs didn’t fight like he normally does. If I was seeing Jacobs fight for the first time last Saturday, I wouldn’t become a new fan of his, because he was boring to watch.

“With all due respect, Triple G is a great fighter, but the way everyone made his power out to be and his skill out to be, it was a myth. It was a façade. It was smoke and mirrors. It wasn’t what I expected. I expected the worst. I expected his best, and I didn’t get that,” said Jacobs.
Golovkin really didn’t throw many big power shots in the fight. It looked like he was throwing with moderate power just to make contact. Jacobs didn’t really get hit with a lot of Golovkin’s best shots. If Golovkin had opened up with his best power punches, I think Jacobs wouldn’t have survived to the final bell. Golovkin gave him too much respect, especially after he knocked him down in round 4.

Jacobs seems like he’s one of those fighters that can’t admit when they’ve been beaten, and don’t give credit to their opponents. I’m not sure what Golovkin stands to gain in fighting Jacobs again. If Golovkin beats Jacobs again, we might hear him denying that he was beaten just like he’s doing now. It would be forlorn after a while. If Golovkin keeps beating Jacobs and he keeps denying he was beaten, it becomes a pointless joke after a while. It’s kind of like how Manny Pacquiao wouldn’t admit that he was beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. Jacobs reminds me a lot of Pacquiao not willing to give credit to Mayweather.

If Golovkin fights Jacobs again, I think he needs to be prepared for him not to give him credit if he loses again. The best thing that Golovkin can do is make sure he knocks Jacobs out in the rematch so that he doesn’t have to hear him harp about how he should have won and how he doesn’t punch hard. It would be better for Jacobs to be building Golovkin up as a great fighter. After all, Jacobs did lose to him. By Jacobs saying that Golovkin’s power and talent is a myth, he’s criticizing himself, because it appears that most boxing fans think Jacobs lost the fight. They’re not blaming it on the interest in the Canelo-Golovkin fight. They just think Jacobs didn’t do enough.