Fourteen months after his subpar performance against Gabe Rosado, Daniel Jacobs intends to show there is much more that separates him from John Ryder than we saw at the scale Friday afternoon in London.
Jacobs weighed in at 166.9 pounds for their 12-round super middleweight match Saturday night at Alexandra Palace in London. Ryder was slightly heavier, 167 pounds, yet still a full pound below their division’s limit for their WBA eliminator.
Brooklyn’s Jacobs, 35, and London’s Ryder, 33, will headline DAZN’s worldwide stream from a sports and entertainment facility known colloquially among Brits as “Ally Pally.” DAZN’s coverage will begin at 7 p.m. GMT and 2 p.m. ET.
Jacobs wants to atone for how he fought in his most recent appearance – a controversial, 12-round, split-decision victory over Philadelphia’s Gabriel Rosado in their super middleweight match in November 2020 at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida. Jacobs (37-3, 30 KOs) defeated Rosado (26-14-1, 15 KOs, 1 NC) on two scorecards (115-113, 115-113, 113-115), only to withstand a lot of criticism for what was consistently called an apathetic performance by the former IBF and WBA world middleweight champion.
Rosado and Jacobs talked trash throughout the promotion of a main event DAZN streamed, though their fight mostly amounted to a sparring session in which neither fighter engaged all that much.
Ryder, meanwhile, has won back-to-back bouts since the veteran southpaw pushed former WBA super middleweight champion Callum Smith in a November 2019 fight Ryder lost by unanimous decision. The tricky Ryder (30-5, 17 KOs), then the WBA interim 168-pound champion, lost decisively on all three scorecards (117-111, 116-112, 116-112), but those scores didn’t reflect the competitive nature of their 12-round bout at Echo Arena in Smith’s hometown of Liverpool, England.
Ryder requested a rematch, but Smith understandably battled Canelo Alvarez in his next fight and earned a career-high payday. Mexico’s Alvarez (57-1-2, 39 KOs) easily out-boxed a previously unbeaten Smith (28-1, 20 KOs), who lost his WBA belt by unanimous decision in December 2020 at Alamodome in San Antonio.
Most recently, Ryder (30-5, 17 KOs) stopped Slovakia’s Jozef Jurko (8-4-1, 6 KOs) in the fifth round September 10 in Klagenfurt, Austria. In his prior appearance, Ryder went the distance with Mike Guy (13-7-1, 6 KOs), an American opponent who dropped a 10-round unanimous decision to Ryder the day before Smith lost to Alvarez at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
