Why doesn't Jacobs press for his mandatory?

[Eastcoast]

Generally mandatories for the WBA Super belt aren't called, as it's supposed to allow their champions to go and unify. The WBA regular has mandatories, but it's rare that a Super champ is forced to face the Regular champ. I.E Rigo was never mandated to fight Quigg. Kovalev hasn't been mandated to fight Braehmer. Golovkin hasn't been mandated to fight Jacobs. Sturm wasn't mandated to fight GGG (although Daniel Geale was after he beat Sturm, he refused and fought Mundine instead and the WBA stripped him. Until Rigo recently he was the last Super Champto be stripped as far as I can recall). Wlad was mandated to fight Povetkin I think.

And of course Ward was not mandated to fight Froch, it appears Froch was mandated to fight Ward, which is why he got stripped and not Ward too.


Basically, it's a clusterfūck, there's no consistent precedent set on when a Super champ has to fight the regular champ. There's no precedent set either on when a fighter should become a Super Champ, sometimes it's when they've unified, or when they've defended the belt several times, or in Adrien Broner's case after winning the vacant regular belt a month ago and not having a single defence.

Sturm was mandated to fight Golovkin, but got an extension via unification fight with Geale then lost. Golovkin was waiting on the Sturm fight which cost him some other fights on HBO.

Golovkin, a 2004 Olympic silver medalist, knows Sturm from their days together when both were promoted by Germany's Universum. He has a theory on why Sturm hasn't shown any interest in facing him and has tried to avoid the mandatory for as long as possible.

"Sturm and I were both with Universum Box-Promotion. We knew each other pretty well," Golovkin said. "We used to see each other in the gym all the time. We trained together, but we never sparred together. I believe that the reason why Sturm does not want to fight me is because he knows me well and knows that he can't beat me. He knows me and I know him, and I want the fight."

On Saturday in Ukraine, Golovkin (23-0, 20 KOs) retained his belt with a violent third-round destruction of Japan's overmatched Makoto Fuchigami (19-7, 10 KOs). With Fuchigami dismissed in bloody fashion, Golovkin now wants the fight with Sturm (37-2-2, 16 KOs), which is due by Sept. 30.

It remains to be seen whether Sturm will fight him, but Golovkin's camp plans to press for the bout as hard as it can.

"The deal we made with the WBA is that Sturm was allowed a voluntary defense, and if he wins, his next fight will be a mandatory defense," said K2 promoter Tom Loeffler, who promotes Golovkin as part of the Klitschko brothers' stable of fighters. "They have been ordered to make that fight by Sept. 30. At this point, Sturm is running out of options. Sturm, at this time, holds the record for being a champion the longest without having a mandatory defense. Two years ago, Gennady was the interim champion and Sturm was the WBA champion. Sturm then got elevated to super champion. For the last two years, Gennady has been trying to fight him."

Golovkin, who has traveled to New York to meet with American television network executives, hopes to fight in the United States -- but only after the fight with Sturm, if it happens.

"I want the fight with Felix Sturm," Golovkin said. "That is the only fight I really want at this time. I do think he will get in the ring with me by Sept. 30. If that doesn't work out, I can move to either 154 or 168 if I need to find another opponent. Whatever it is, I want the best fights against the best opponents. I will fight [Dmitry] Pirog or any of the other [middleweight] champions. Right now, it doesn't matter who my opponent is or what weight I fight at."

http://espn.go.com/blog/dan-rafael/p...-chasing-sturm