Jacobs reveals fight weight, says it won’t be “advantage” for Canelo

By Sean Jones

Boxingnews24.com

Daniel Jacobs says he not worried about the secondary weigh-in that Golden Boy Promotions has implemented for his fight against Saul Canelo this Saturday. Jacobs believes this is a ploy to try and weaken him enough for Alvarez (51-1-2, 35 KOs) to beat him, but he says it’s not going to work. He’ll comfortably make the morning secondary weigh-in on Saturday, and then come back in the evening and defeat Canelo.

Neither fighter can come in beyond 170 lbs for the secondary weigh-in on the morning of the fight.

Jacobs (35-2, 29 KOs) says he’s going to into the Canelo Alvarez fight on Saturday night around 174 lbs. The 10 pound rehydration clause won’t have much of an effect on him.

“Weight-wise, I’m great. This whole 10 [pound] weigh-in for the next day,” Jacobs said. “That’s not really going to effect me, and it’s definitely not going to dictate what I’m going to come into the ring at. That’s the reason they implemented it. The IBF took that rule away once it’s a unification match, so it’s definitely something Golden Boy implemented so that. I’m not sure if they’re looking at is as an advantage or what, but it was their doing, and for me, it’s not going to effect me, because my last fight we followed the same procedures, and I was good for the last fight. I look forward to doing the same. I want to come in at the same weight I’ve been at during training camp, which is 174, 175. So I want to gain a good 15 lbs. That to me is where I’m at my optimum. Anything over there, I’m sluggish. That’s with this whole GGG thing where I came in at 185 lbs. If you see me perform at that level, it’s not the best. I’m super sluggish, I’m not that fast, especially the way that I was moving on my feet. You’re not going to get the type of performance out of a guy that’s overweight. It’s not good for your body to gain so much weight after a weigh-in like that and perform. You’re not going to be at your best. So 12 to 15 lbs for me is perfect,” Jacobs said.

It looks bad how the promoters for different fighters are able to use rehydration limits. It’s the elite level superstars that can do this kind of thing, and it looks bad like they’re gaming the system. Can you imagine if baseball great Babe Ruth was able to have his teams use his popularity to have the right field fence brought in 50 feet so it would be easier for him to hit home runs against teams that primarily had right-handed batters. The weights should be the same every fight without promoters being able to add rehydration limits or use catch-weights.

At this point in Canelo’s career, you’d like to think that he’s a good enough fighter for his promoters not to have to use weight gimmicks for him to be able to win. Setting up a rehydration limit for the Jacobs fight reeks of worry and desperation. Canelo should have spoken up and told his promoters at Golden Boy that he doesn’t want any handicaps to try and weaken Jacobs. He should want Daniel to be comfortable, and not in a weakened state. That’s what you got to like about Floyd Mayweather Jr. He wasn’t trying to weaken his opponents with gimmicky catch-weights. He would want them to be comfortable. Yeah, there was a 152 lb catch-weight for Mayweather’s fight with Canelo in 2013, but that was a special case. Mayweather wasn’t a catch-weight fighter, and he certainly didn’t use them for a four-year period the way Canelo did from 2013 to 2016 in his fights with Mayweather, Amir Khan, Erislandy Lara, Alfredo Angulo, Miguel Cotto and James Kirkland.

“I think the performance from the Golovkin fight had a lot of guys looking at me as a high risk low reward, but once I got that opportunity to become a champion against Derevyanchenko, I knew that everybody was going to come for me and accept me as an opponent because I had something to bring to the table,” Jacobs said. “Not that I’m just a threat with no belt, and they wanted to look the other way.”

Jacobs winning the IBF middleweight title clearly opened the door for him to get the Canelo fight. Without the IBF strap, Jacobs likely would have been ignored by Canelo and Golden Boy, just like Demetrius Andrade is being ignored. The real test is whether Jacobs can get the other top fighters to face him if he beats Canelo on Saturday. Will the contenders suddenly converge on the weak link Andrade to go after his WBO belt or will try be chomping at the bit to get a fight against Jacobs? If Jacobs beats Canelo, he’ll get a rematch unless he completely obliterates him the way he did Peter Quillin. Canelo has a lot of pride, but he’s not stupid. If Jacobs slices through him like butter like he did against Quillin and Sergio Mora, Canelo will take the safe route go after Andrade.

Jacobs is one of those guys that can be a bad style match-up for some fighters. We’ll have to see how it goes. Canelo is the favorite right now, but Jacobs has a real chance of winning.

Golovkin was able to handle Jacobs’ shots, but a lot of fighters can’t. If Jacobs comes out on fire on Saturday night, he could make quick work of the shorter 5’8″ Canelo. It’s interesting to note that Jacobs has NEVER lost to a short fighter in his career. He beats the brakes off of small guys. The only fighters that have given Jacobs problems is the 5’11” Dmitry Pirog and the 5’10 1/2″ Golovkin. Those were Eastern European fighters with a different style of fighting that Jacobs clearly wasn’t used to. Canelo has a style of fighting that Jacobs has seen before many times during his career, so he’s going to be right at home on Saturday night when he meets up with Alvarez at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.