No man can claim to have faced both Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin in the paid ranks but in just a matter of days, Daniel Jacobs will be the first to do so.
As such, Jacobs has a unique perspective when it comes to preparing for both fighters and during the final press conference before Jacobs' May 4 fight against Alvarez, Jacobs touched on that subject. Jacobs, the current IBF middleweight champion, said there are different ways to look at his preparation against both men.
Starting off with Golovkin, whom Jacobs fought in 2017, the New York native said he had to deal with the mental strain of going up against Golovkin, who at the time was considered the most-feared power puncher in the sport. But while preparing for Golovkin was a mentally-tougher fight to train for, preparing for Alvarez is a much more physically-demanding task.
“I think mentally, Golovkin started out as the most devastating power puncher and boogeyman of the division. So mentally, he was tougher. Physically, this is much harder preparation because Canelo is very agile, he’s very fast, his offensive onslaught is at an all-time high. It’s a drastic difference. I thought I won the GGG fight and I assure you I will win this fight without controversy," Jacobs said.
Although Jacobs barely lost to Golovkin on the scorecards in 2017, Jacobs will have another chance to walk away with three of the four major middleweight titles (WBA, WBC and IBF) when he faces Alvarez on May 4. That fight will headline a boxing card from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that will be streamed on DAZN. Fightful will have live coverage of the entire card.
