By Keith Idec
Daniel Jacobs’ trainer obviously respects Gennady Golovkin’s power.
Andre Rozier just doesn’t think Golovkin possesses one-punch knockout power. In fact, Rozier believes Jacobs actually is more of a one-punch knockout artist than Golovkin, who has knocked out 92 percent of his opponents.
That’s among the advantages Rozier thinks Brooklyn’s Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) will own over Kazakhstan’s Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) when they meet March 18 at Madison Square Garden (HBO Pay-Per-View).
“Well, he has good punching power,” Rozier said Wednesday during a conference call. ‘I’m not gonna say that he has hellacious punching power, because he doesn’t hit people with one shot and then it’s over with. Most of his knockouts come through basically attrition, where he’s constantly banging at you and wearing you down.
“I mean, he’s had a couple [one-punch knockouts], but Danny has had more first-round knockouts than he has. And Danny has hit a lot more people with those one or two clean shots than Gennady has. I mean, even in Gennady’s last fight against Kell Brook – Kell Brook, in the first round, he tripped up a bit. He never went down. This was an attrition effort with him, constantly applying pressure and breaking him down. And a lot of people, they get caught up in the issue, ‘OK, the fight is stopped. The bottom line is, did he win by a knockout?’ Yes, he did. But we knock people out. And that’s gonna be one of the major differences.”
Rozier also feels fans and media might be making too much out of the knockdowns Jacobs has suffered against former WBO middleweight champ Dmitry Pirog and onetime WBC super welterweight champ Sergio Mora.
Pirog stopped Jacobs in the fifth round of their title fight 6½ years ago. Jacobs overcame a first-round knockdown against Mora, whom Jacobs also dropped in the first round, in their August 2015 fight to win by technical knockout in the second round. He also dominated Mora in their rematch 13 months later by knocking him down five times on his way to a seventh-round TKO victory.
“When people see,” Rozier said, “and they keep mentioning it constantly, ‘Oh, Danny went down.’ Yeah, Danny went down and that made Danny a lot smarter. In his fight against ‘Kid Chocolate,’ he showed supreme athleticism and incredible aggression – a little more than I wanted – but incredible aggression. He was a monster. That’s what Danny can do.
“Danny can go from being up on his toes, flashing jabs and quick combinations, or he might come at you like a little wildebeest, ready to bang and dig and scruff you out. He has many, many options. So, yes, Gennady can punch. But Danny can punch, too. Gennady’s rough. Danny can be rough, too. Danny’s hands are a lot faster than his opponent’s, and you’re gonna see some of the differences play themselves out in this fight."
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.