Jacobs: Would Be 'Absurd' for GGG to Look Ahead to Canelo Fight

By Keith Idec

Daniel Jacobs is immersed in training camp for the biggest fight of his career.

He’s not looking at social media or reading stories on the Internet with any regularity. Nevertheless, Jacobs has been made aware while training in Oakland, California, that negotiations between representatives for Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez have continued to take place.

Oscar De La Hoya, Alvarez’s promoter, publicly discussed those negotiations many times last week during a five-day, four-city tour to promote Alvarez’s May 6 fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in Las Vegas. Speculation regarding an Alvarez-Golovkin showdown has intensified in part because Alvarez and Golovkin are heavy favorites in their respective fights against Chavez and Jacobs.

Brooklyn’s Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) isn’t infuriated by the acknowledgement of Alvarez-Golovkin negotiations, but he considers those talks a potential distraction for Kazakhstan’s Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) as they prepare for their middleweight title fight March 18 at Madison Square Garden (HBO Pay-Per-View).

“We don’t really talk about it,” Jacobs said Wednesday during a conference call. “I mean, we maybe discussed it once and probably laughed about it. But I think it would be absurd for anyone to make plans past this fight, whether it’s his team or whether it’s him himself. But honestly, I just feel like his focus should be 100-percent on me.

“It doesn’t really add so much motivation [for me]. But I think it just adds to it. I’m self-motivated. This fight is motivating in itself, in what I can accomplish in fulfilling my dreams. So that’s good enough for me. But I just think it’s foolish for anyone to – whether it’s speculation or not – I just think it would be foolish for anyone to do things like that. I think it would be, mentally, taking me for granted, and I don’t think they wanna get into that mind frame of, you know, planning before the actual fight happens.”

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