Jacobs: Canelo beats Golovkin if he can take his shots

Boxingnews24.com

By Jeff Aranow: Daniel “The Miracle Man” Jacobs believes that the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Gennady “GGG” Golovkin fight will be won by Canelo if he can take the shots from Golovkin. Jacobs thinks it comes down to whether Canelo can handle GGG’s power. If he can, then he beats him in their fight on September 16. Jacobs (32-2, 29 KOs) lost to Golovkin by a close 12 round unanimous decision last March. Jacobs believes he should have won the fight, and he wants a rematch with Golovkin in the worst way.

Golovkin might ultimately give Jacobs a rematch in the future, but he still has to beat Canelo and then go after the WBO middleweight title. There’s also a possibility of a rematch between Canelo and Golovkin. Jacobs is probably looking 2 years at least before he gets a rematch with Golovkin.

“It wasn’t really entertaining. It was one-sided,” said Jacobs to Fighthub.com about the Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. fight. “It was either two things. Either Chavez wasn’t what we thought he was or the weight played a factor. He did a great job,” said Jacobs about Canelo. “I knew he wasn’t going to stop him because of the weight advantage. He just dominated this guy. This guy wasn’t even fighting. It was like sparring,” said Jacobs about Chavez Jr.

Jacobs doesn’t seem to have spotted how weak Chavez Jr. was. It wasn’t a case of Chavez Jr. being overrated, because he’s proven himself to a certain extent in the past against good fighters. What happened though is Chavez Jr’s weight has gone up as he’s gotten older, and he simply cannot fight at super middleweight any longer. He can’t make the weight. For the Canelo fight, Chavez Jr. had to get down to 164.5 pounds for the catchweight, which was 10 lbs. lighter than he can comfortably make at this point in his career.

Whether Chavez Jr. wants to admit it or not, he’s light heavyweight at this point in his career. Chavez Jr. was too weak to fight after he dropped down from his natural weight, which is probably close to 190. I’d heard that Chavez Jr. was over 200 pounds when he first started training for the Canelo. He had to lose a lot of weight to get down to 164.5. If Canelo was asked to melt down to 145 instead of his normal 155lb catchweight, he would be too weak to do anything. It’s the same thing with Chavez Jr. He had no business fighting at 164.

“Questions about whether Canelo can take those shots. That’s pretty much the deciding factor whether the fight can be won by Canelo or not,” said Jacobs.

I think Jacobs is really underestimating Golovkin’s talent. If all Jacobs thinks is Golovkin has only a puncher’s chance against Canelo, then maybe he had something knocked loose in his head from their fight on March 18, because Golovkin can definitely beat Canelo by a decision if it comes to that. Canelo is basically a slightly better version of David Lemieux.

Canelo doesn’t have Lemieux’s punching power or his finishing skills inside 6 rounds, but he’s got better boxing skills and stamina. Both fighters are about the same size. Lemieux was too short for Golovkin, and he ended up getting jabbed for 7 rounds until Golovkin stopped him after hurting him with a body shot in round 8. I think Golovkin can do the same thing to Canelo if he decides he wants to jab him. Golovkin was able to beat Jacobs with his jab. Golovkin wasn’t even really going after Jacobs to try and knock him out. He was just boxing him and looking to win a decision.

”You can’t run. I know you have business to attend,” said Jacobs to esnewsreporting.com in talking about Golovkin and a potential rematch that he wants. ”I know you have bigger and better plans in your mind, but you can’t retire. You can’t call it quits before you fight me,” said Jacobs.

Jacobs needs to get busy with his own boxing career rather than worrying about Golovkin.

Jacobs is 30-years-old now, he’s only had 3 significant fights in his entire career. He’s got to get busy and start fighting again. Golovkin has a fight scheduled against Canelo. Jacobs needs to get busy with his own career and find someone to fight before he ends up out of the ring for an extended period of time. It’s already been 2 months since Jacobs last fought and he doesn’t have an opponent in the pipeline. I have a feeling that Jacobs might be done for the remainder of 2017. I hope not, because he needs to stay active. But when you see a guy sitting around after a big fight, it often means they’re going to let a year pass by before they fight again.

I don’t think a rematch will go well for Jacobs. I suspect that Golovkin purposefully let Jacobs go the full 12 round distance against him so that he could look vulnerable enough to lure Canelo and Golden Boy into making the fight with him. What makes me think that was the way that Golovkin backed off after he dropped Jacobs in the 4th round.

Normally in a situation like that, Golovkin would shoot for a quick knockout to finish off his hurt opponent, but he didn’t do that with Jacobs. He let him survive by not trying to attack. I believe that the whole game for Golovkin was to let the fight with Jacobs got to the scorecards so that he could look beatable. Golovkin did just enough to get the win. After he knocked Jacobs down in round 4, he eased off on him and didn’t try and finish him. I think it was a strategic move on GGG’s part.

”I waited 2 years,” said Golovkin about him waiting for 2 years for a fight against Canelo. “This is boxing. He’s a very strong guy. He’s a very tough guy. I have power too. We have a lot of time before September,” said Golovkin.

“Canelo dominated the whole fight,” said Golovkin about the Chavez Jr. vs. Canelo fight. “He looked really good. With me, it’s a different story, a very different story. People understand the situation. 160 is a true category, not like 164. The last couple of fights, Canelo has looked good. I looked okay. It’s very interesting who wins in September,” said Golovkin.

It will be a much different story for Canelo when he gets inside the ring with Golovkin compared with Chavez Jr. Hopefully, Canelo didn’t get spoiled from last Saturday’s easy win over Chavez Jr. If Canelo thinks that the Golovkin fight will be just as easy, then he could get hurt and knocked out by him, because it’s not going to be Chavez Jr. that he’s fighting on September 16.

“The quality of this fight wasn’t up to par because Chavez Jr. couldn’t do anything really with Canelo,” said De La Hoya to ESPN. “Canelo was the superior boxer, the superior fighter. He can take a punch. He’s a strong guy. He’s a strong individual. It was a one-sided fight. It was a great fight for Canelo Alvarez. It takes two to tango, and obviously Chavez Jr. didn’t show up to dance a beautiful waltz with Canelo inside the ring. Obviously, it’s not the type of fight we’re used to seeing between two Mexicans, but Canelo took care of business. He took care of the job. Now on September 16, Canelo vs. Triple G, it’s on. We have the biggest fight. I believe it will be the biggest fight in boxing history, including the one with Mayweather and Pacquiao. This one, believe me, all dancing partners will show up,” said De La Hoya.

Canelo vs. Golovkin bigger than Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao, that would be something if it does eclipse that fight. De La Hoya would be smiling from ear to ear, especially Canelo wins. I don’t know if he will, however, because Golovkin is the bigger guy of the two. Canelo did not look exceptionally powerful last Saturday night. He looked powerful against welterweight Amir Khan, but he wasn’t facing a middleweight in that fight. I think it’s going to be a much different situation when Canelo gets inside the ring with GGG and finds out quickly that his power hasn’t traveled up with him from the 155 lb. weight division he’s created. If Caneloi can’t crack eggs at 160, then he’s going to need to try and get back down to his 155lb catchweight perfect that he’s been sitting at for the last 4 years of his career.