Middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) beat a very defensive-minded Daniel “Miracle Man” Jacobs (32-2, 29 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision tonight to retrain his titles in front of a large crowd at Madison Square Garden in New York. You can argue that the fight failed to live up to the expectations of the boxing fans, as there wasn’t much action to speak of.
Golovkin knocked Jacobs down in round 4. Aside from that, it was a cat and mouse type of fight with Golovkin stalking a reluctant Jacobs around the ring and looking for a perfect shot rather than just letting his hands go. Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez should have lit a fire under his backside by round 7 to tell him to after Jacobs and throw punches, because he was being far too cautious.
Golovkin appeared to get the better of Jacobs in 4 out of the first 6 rounds. The knockdown that GGG scored in round 4 put him in a good position to win the fight in the second half of the contest. Jacobs came on a little in the last six rounds. However, Golovkin hurt Jacobs in the 9th, and outworked him in rounds 11 and 12.
There’s not much you can say about Jacobs. He didn’t do enough in the first half of the fight, and then fought in a timid way in the championship rounds from 10 through 12. That’s not to say that Golovkin fought well. He didn’t fight well. Golovkin got stuck trying to box Jacobs, and he should have switched gears by the 7th to start slugging because he wasn’t winning the rounds in a decisive enough manner.
Golovkin didn’t seem happy with his performance after the fight, saying that the next time he fights it’ll be a “drama show.” If Golovkin had made it a drama show tonight, he might have scored a knockout rather than having the fight go to a decision. Golovkin said after the fight that he wanted “ decision fight.” He got it, but there are a lot of boxing fans that are less than happy with the decision.
The final scores were as follows: 115-112, 115-112, and 114-113. The knockdown that Golovkin scored in round 4 was crucial to him winning.
Jacobs was not happy with the results of the fight, but he made the mistake of getting knocked down in the 4th. Jacobs also didn’t ever really go after Golovkin to show the judges that he deserved the victory. Jacobs only sporadically attacked Golovkin. Even that, it was only little more than one or two punches. Jacobs mostly jabbed all night, and it’s hard to win a fight against a power puncher like Golovkin if you don’t throw power shots back.
—
In a big upset victory, Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (42-4-1,38 KOs) edged WBC super flyweight champion Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez (46-1, 38 KOs) in beating him by a 12 round majority decision to dethrone him and end his unbeaten streak. Gonzalez was knocked down in round 1 by a big shot from Rungvisai. Gonzalez was dealing with a cut above his right eye from the 3rd round on. That was a problem for him. The cut was caused by a clash of heads. The referee took a point from Rungvisai in round 6 for another clash of heads.
Rungvisai was too big and too powerful for Gonzalez, who was making only his second fight at super flyweight since moving up to the division last year. Gonzalez probably should have moved back down to flyweight following his narrow 12 round decision win over Carlos Cuadras last September.
The final scores were 114-112, 114-112, and 113-113. Scoring it a draw would be fair, because Gonzalez was the one making the fight towards the end. Rungvisai looked to be coasting and trying not to get hit. Rungvisai wasn’t fighting like a challenger. He was fighting more like a champion wanting to coast after building a lead.
Rungvisai did throw a lot of punches through most of the fight. Gonzalez had his moments in every round. The problem that he had was his lack of size and power.
Other boxing results:
Carlos Cuadras UD 10 David Carmona
Andy Lee UD 8 KeAndrae Leatherwood
Ryan Martin TKO 8 Bryant Cruz
