By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Daniel Jacobs was encouraged by how easily Kell Brook was able to hit Gennady Golovkin.
Brook drilled Golovkin with several clean punches during their September 10 fight in London. The IBF welterweight champion just wasn’t big enough or strong enough to seriously hurt Golovkin with any of those punches, and eventually lost by fifth-round technical knockout at O2 Arena in London.
The 6-foot Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) is sure he is plenty big enough and strong enough to affect Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) more than Brook (36-1, 25 KOs) if he can land similar punches during their HBO Pay-Per-View main event March 18 at Madison Square Garden. Jacobs told a group of reporters Thursday at the Brooklyn Nets’ training facility that he has noticed numerous defensive flaws in Golovkin’s other fights as well.
“It just wasn’t the Brook fight,” Jacobs said, “even though the Brook fight was a clear indication that if you have speed and you have movement that you can hit him. Obviously, I put myself in that position. ‘Hey, if this guy, this little guy could hit him and somewhat hurt him, could you imagine what I’ll do if I’ll land those same punches?’
“So yeah, it’s a bit of an edge. But at the same time, this is boxing. He could be a totally different fighter the next fight out and fight a totally different style. So we just have to be equipped and ready for anything – any and everything.”
The 29-year-old Jacobs made it clear, though, that he won’t enter the ring looking to knock out Golovkin, who has won 23 straight bouts by knockout and stopped 92 percent of his professional opponents. The WBA world middleweight champion fully understands that the Kazakh knockout artist is very dangerous, not a fighter to attack recklessly.
“[A knockout] wasn’t on my mind when it happened with Peter Quillin,” Jacobs explained. “A knockout is never on my mind. If I have a guy hurt, then [it’s] on my mind. Or if I’m assigned to do so, then it’s on my mind. But I’m a natural boxer, right? So naturally, I go in there and try to figure out the puzzle. And if I execute it, I execute it.
“My trainer [Andre Rozier] always says – he has a knockout boxer mentality. We’re different. It works, but we’re different. But at the same time, he says if perfectly – ‘You don’t get paid for overtime. So if you go in there and you see an opportunity to get a guy out of there, then get him out of there.’ I’m not saying that’s the mentality we have. But if it presents itself, oh, we’re gonna be more than ready to do the job. It’s not gonna be easy, but …”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
