Saul Canelo Alvarez (52-1-2, 35 KOs) boxed his way to a 12 round unanimous decision over Daniel Jacobs (35-3, 29 KOs) on Saturday night in their much talked about fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Neither fighter was hurt during the contest, although Jacobs nailed Canelo with a big right hand in the ninth round that got his attention.
The judges scored it 115-113, 115-113, and 116-112. The 116-112 scores were indicative of the fight that took place tonight. Canelo fought well enough to win by an 8 rounds to 4 score. Jacobs will be kicking himself when he watched the fight, because he could have won if he had fought harder in the first six rounds. Jacobs fought without passion, and looked timid, lackluster and without energy. Jacobs’ own promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing commented on that as well. He thought Jacobs looked flat, and he wonders whether he needs to move up to 168. That probably won’t happen though, because he’ll likely want to stay at middleweight for a future rematch with Gennady Golovkin, and potentially a second fight against Canelo. After the way Jacobs looked tonight, few boxing fans would want to see a second fight between him and Alvarez.
Many of the rounds were close, but Canelo appeared the majority of them with his cleaner, harder landing shots, and the fact that he was constantly pushing the fight. Jacobs would fight hard at times, but mostly he was staying on the outside, pushing a jab out at Canelo. When Jacobs did let his hands go with multi-combinations, he was quite effective, but he rarely did that. Mostly he would paw with his jab, throw pot shots, and focus on his defense.
After a slow start in the first half of the fight, Jacobs fought better in rounds seven though ten, appearing to win those rounds. If Jacobs could have fought hard in the 11th and 12th, he would have gotten a draw, but he went back to fighting timidly after Canelo increased. That was disappointing, because Jacobs had fought well when Canelo was looking tired in the middle of the fight.
When Jacobs was on the outside, Canelo couldn’t do much. He was helpless basically, but Jacobs wasn’t snapping jab out to win the rounds conclusively. Canelo was there to be beaten from the outside if Jacobs had jabbed him with authority, but he mostly was just tapping Canelo.
Results:
Saul Alvarez W 12 Daniel Jacobs
Vergil Ortiz Jr KO 3 Mauricio Herrera
Joseph Diaz W TKO 7 Freddy Fonseca
Lamont Roach Jr W 10 Jonathan Oquendo
Anthony Young W TKO 3 Sadam Ali
John Ryder W TKO 3 Bilal Akkawy
Aram Avagyan W 10 Francisco Esparza
Alexis Espino W 4 Billy Wagner
