By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Daniel Jacobs just tried to remain as patient as possible while negotiations dragged along for his shot at Gennady Golovkin.
Remaining optimistic and positive wasn’t always easy, though, when boxing fans ferociously attacked the WBA world middleweight champion on social media.
What bothered him more than anything was the implication that he’s scared to face the Kazakh knockout artist. A long-constructed deal was finalized two weeks ago for Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs), the IBF/WBA/IBO/WBC middleweight champion, and Brooklyn’s Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) to meet March 18 at Madison Square Garden (HBO Pay-Per-View).
“Oh my goodness, people are cruel,” a laughing Jacobs told a small group of reporters recently at the Brooklyn Nets’ training facility. “People could be cruel because when you have that platform, where you have no type of repercussions or anything, you could say [it] and it’s not gonna be me at the door, saying, ‘What’d you say?’
“So people can say anything, but I think the thing that ticked me [off], more so than people saying anything, was that I was scared to fight Triple-G. Now that is so far from the truth. It was more so about making sure everything else was in order, making sure that the contracts were right. Because not only am I fighting, I’m fighting for a living and I’m fighting for my family, and that has to be in order. I’m a businessman as well. And I have a great business team. So if my team has a job, then I have to make sure I allow myself and my team to make the best opportunities for all of us.”
Fighting Golovkin, who has knocked out 23 straight opponents, obviously will be difficult. Dealing with disrespectful people who weren’t privy to the details of the negotiations was tough, too.
“Yeah, it was rough,” Jacobs said. “I guess it’s just pride. I know I’m not scared of him. But it was just non-stop. ‘Oh, you don’t want the fight because … you wanna price yourself out because you don’t want the fight. You want so much money because of this. How do you know your worth? You can’t,’ like, how do I know my worth? Are you kidding me? You know what I’m saying?
“It was just weird things like that, that just kinda ticked me off. But once we finally got to a point where I knew the fight was gonna be made, I was just excited. I was like, ‘What do you guys say now?’ I go in there, I’m comfortable on that aspect. Now I just do my job to give the fans what they wanna see.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
