WBA World middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs has spent his entire life proving people wrong.
It is impossible to analyze Jacobs the boxer, without enquiring into his courageous battle with Osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer that nearly floored Jacobs for good.
He was forced to step out of the ring for 19 months, but since his return against Josh Luteran on October 20, 2012, the 28-year-old has gone on an incredible run of 10-0 with 10 knockouts.
Jacobs has one blemish on his resume, a fifth-round TKO stoppage to former world champion Dmitry Pirog.
The native New Yorker was ahead in a close fight when he was caught with a perfect right hand one minute into the round.
Jacobs, though, did not appear to be finished, merely taking his time to recover.
It was reminiscent to the way former world champion Robert Guerrero reacted when he was floored by WBA World welterweight titlist Keith Thurman during the debut of Premier Boxing Champions in March.
However, when Jacobs attempted to get up, Robert Byrd shoved him back, signaling a halt to the action, despite Jacobs yelling, “I’m good! I’m good!”
That is exactly what cancer does, it shoves its victims back with all of its might, strength, and brutality, no matter how much one shrieks.
Doctors told Jacobs that the tumor was growing so fast that his heart would have started to slow down within four days.
Given that he was at the point of requiring a cane to help his maneuver before his diagnosis, his chances of survival may have been as low as 15 percent to as high as 30 percent.
It did not matter for Jacobs. Staying prostrate on the floor was not an option.
Not only has he blasted every opponent since his return to the ring, but he has also demolished most of them and became the first cancer-survivor in boxing history to become a world champion.
Last Saturday, Jacobs proved the critics wrong when he stopped former middleweight champion Peter Quillin inside the first round.
While most agreed that the fight was going to end in a KO, a majority gave the upper hand to Quillin and clearly underestimated Jacobs.
Boom. Silence.
In March, Jacobs said this of WBA Super World middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin: “He [Martin Murray] gave GGG a couple problems, and we’ve seen the flaws, but like I said before, it’s just a matter of getting in there and doing it. A lot of people can say what they are going to do; a lot of people can say that. But, it’s only going to take a couple special guys to get the job done, and I believe I’m one of those guys.”
In a follow-up in June at MGM Grand, I asked Jacobs to clarify if he would be willing to fight Golovkin, but he avoided the topic.
“I’ve always wanted Peter Quillin first. I’ve been calling out Peter Quillin for quite some time.”
With Quillin out, the focus is on the future.
Given that newly crowned WBC World middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will likely enforce a catch-weight agreement in which Team Golovkin has stated they would not agree to, could this mean Golovkin-Jacobs before Golovkin-Canelo?
Casting the television networks issue to the side, is it possible that Golovkin-Jacobs eclipses the excitement of Golovkin-Canelo?
Canelo carries a lot more star power than any of these fighters, but does that automatically mean an exciting fight?
Not necessarily.
Cotto-Canelo was billed as a potential ‘Fight of the Year’ candidate, it garnered 900,000 buys, but it came along with a ho-hum main event, and an undercard filled with controversial decisions.
Jacobs just took a previously undefeated ex-world champion and put him away in only one round.
Say what you want about the stoppage being early, but Quillin did not protest referee Harvey Dock’s decision, and that says a lot.
The billing could be as clever as ‘Super vs. Regular,’ but Golovkin-Jacobs as a fight itself could represent the polar opposites of both sides of the billing – a spectacular fight that is not so habitual.
Let us know what you think about this possibility.
– Ryan O’Hara @OHaraSports
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