By Bill Phanco: Middleweight Daniel Jacobs (24-1, 21 KO’s) will be facing journeyman Billy Lyell (24-11, 5 KO’s) in a scheduled 10 round bout on February 9th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Jacobs-Lyell will be taking place on the undercard of the Zab Judah vs. Danny Garcia fight card on Showtime. Jacob’s fight could possibly make it on the televised portion of the broadcast but it’s still unclear if it will.
The card also has WBO middleweight champion Peter Quillin defending his title against Fernando Guerrero, and light middleweight Dmitriy Salida facing Hector Camacho Jr.
Jacobs missed a lot of action from 2011 to 2012 after a cancer scare. He turned to action in October of last year in destroying Josh Luteran by a 1st round knockout, and in his last fight, Jacobs defeated Chris Fitzgerald by a 5th round stoppage last month on December 1st.
Although Jacobs looked good for the most part in those two fights, he still lacks the sharpness that he once had before he was beaten by Dmitriy Pirog by a 5th round knockout in July 2010. Pirog really dominated Jacobs, and you have to expect him to do it again if they were to fight now because Jacobs doesn’t look as good as he did back then.
Lyell’s career has been sinking recently with him losing his last two fights against Dominik Britsch and Jonathan Gonzalez. Lyell defeated John Duddy in April 2009 in an upset. However, Lyell was beaten by IBF middleweight champion Sebastian Sylvester by a 10th round TKO in January 2010. In January 2011, Lyell was beaten by Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. by a 10 round decision. In 2011, Lyell defeated Michael Walker by a 6 round decision.
Jacobs should win this fight but it won’t tell us much about how far he can go in the division. It’s hard to imagine seeing Jacobs beating WBO champ Peter Quillin or handling the power and skill of WBA champ Gennady Golokvin. Daniel Geale might be someone Jacobs would stand a better chance of beating but even that would be a tough fight for him.