By Keith Idec

Matt Korobov respects Daniel Jacobs’ ability.

The Russian middleweight contender just doesn’t think Jacobs can upset Gennady Golovkin. Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs), despite his size, skill and and power, is an 8-1 underdog two months in advance of his March 18 middleweight title fight against Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) at Madison Square Garden (HBO Pay-Per-View).

“Styles make fights,” Korobov told BoxingScene.com. “Jacobs is a good fighter, but Triple-G will knock him out inside eight rounds. Gennady has too many tools for Jacobs. If distance is close, Triple-G will stop him quickly. If Jacobs keeps good distance, he can last a little longer. But there is only one result in this fight. If you watch when I knock Jacobs down [in their amateur fight], he didn’t keep good distance and I caught him and he went down. Even though our fight was a long time ago, Jacobs still makes the same amateur mistakes with distance.”

Here’s the link to the Korobov-Jacobs amateur match from 2005: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R_LJ3HgYgo

Korobov hopes to fight Golovkin later this year, particularly if Golovkin beats Jacobs and fights sometime in June in Monte Carlo, as Abel Sanchez recently told BoxingScene.com he would do. If Jacobs upsets the Kazakh knockout artist, Korobov doesn’t expect to face Brooklyn’s Jacobs.

“I do not think Jacobs will win, but if he did win he would never fight me, anyway,” Korobov said. “It would be a big fight in New York, but I don’t think he would want to do it again. I won easy in the amateurs. It was too complete of a beating. We were both very young, but I destroyed him. The subconscious is very powerful and he would come into our fight defeated. That’s why I don’t see him taking a fight with me, even if he pulls off a miracle.”

Meanwhile, Korobov has asked his promoter, Top Rank Inc., to schedule a fight for him around the time of the Golovkin-Jacobs card. Top Rank has a show scheduled for March 17 in The Theater at Madison Square Garden, which will feature the pro debut of Irish Olympian Michael Conlan.

“I want to be prepared to step in on a moment’s notice against Triple-G, Jacobs or for any big fight that comes this year,” Korobov said. “I am more serious than ever before, and I promise 2017 will be the year I win a world title.”

In his most recent fight, the 34-year-old Korobov (27-1, 14 KOs) defeated Scott Sigmon (27-10-1, 15 KOs) by unanimous decision in an eight-rounder November 18 in Kissimmee, Florida. He has won three consecutive fights by unanimous decision, including a decisive defeat of Bryan Vera (24-11, 14 KOs), since losing to Andy Lee by sixth-round technical knockout in their WBO middleweight title fight in December 2014 at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.