Jacobs: Golovkin Won't Let Me Hit Him Like He Let Past Opponents

By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Daniel Jacobs believes Abel Sanchez when he says Gennady Golovkin has allowed some of his opponents to hit him.

Sanchez, Golovkin’s trainer, has stated numerous times that Golovkin has given foes free shots at him either to extend fights or make those bouts more entertaining. The Kazakh knockout artist hasn’t acknowledged this practice publicly.

But assuming, based on Sanchez’s statements, that it’s true, the 34-year-old Golovkin hasn’t paid a price for it because he is undefeated (36-0) and has won an unusually high 92 percent of his bouts by knockout (33).

Brooklyn’s Jacobs doesn’t expect to receive those types of opportunities when they meet March 18 in a middleweight title fight at Madison Square Garden (HBO Pay-Per-View). The WBA world middleweight champion is two inches taller than the 5-foot-10 Golovkin, who has won 23 straight bouts by knockout, and himself has knocked out 29 of his 33 professional opponents (88 percent).

“He’s not gonna let me hit him,” Jacobs said during a recent gathering with reporters at the Brooklyn Nets’ training facility. “He’s not gonna do that.”

Golovkin has taken such chances in previous bouts, according to Jacobs, because the IBF/WBA/WBC/IBO 160-pound champion has supreme confidence in his chin and knew his sometimes smaller, sometimes overmatched opponents couldn’t hurt him. Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) alluded to England’s Kell Brook (36-1, 25 KOs), the IBF welterweight champion Golovkin beat by fifth-round technical knockout in his last fight, September 10 at O2 Arena in London.

“Sometimes I let guys hit me in sparring,” Jacobs said. “But I know I’ve got pads on. I know the circumstances. Now, if you know your circumstances, and you’re in there with a welterweight or you’re in there with a junior middleweight, you can afford to take that chance. He could take a shot. So yeah, he has done that.

“But you know who you can and you cannot do that with. You know? So it’ll be interesting to see if he does it. I’m gonna give it my best shot if he gives me that opportunity. But this is boxing. You never know what can happen. I could create the shot myself.”

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