The Legend of Danny J. - the Golden Child's Miracle Marathon

Okay, that I'll grant you - the hype and the red carpet have been laid out for Jacobs from the beginning. Hell, the nickname "Golden Child" was his dating to before his pro debut (and long before he reached HBO PPV co-main event status when he fought Pirog) when he captured the gold medal at the AAA national Junior Olympics just a few months after his 16th birthday.

But a couple of things,

1. I don't think it has anything to do with him being from NY specifically, except insofar as, if we're talking about the US amateurs, the New York scene is among the best in the country and their Golden Gloves absolutely the most coveted and prestigious...and Jacobs won the NY GG 4x. The hype was very much based on his merit. Jacobs went 137-7 in the amateurs, and fought a lot of very good fighters both domestically and internationally. I don't think he was put ahead of anyone more deserving just because he was from Brooklyn. Besides, that's a really weird bias to have, I've gotta say. Yes a lot of fame has sprouted in the Big Apple but that's because it is a giant mecca with a large population and has been a cultural and political nexus since before this country was even sovereign. I happen to agree that Kerouac was a bit overrated, but how about his beat contemporary and fellow New Yorker Allen Ginsberg? He'd have been an ATG if we came from Anchorage, Alaska, let's be honest. Just because a musician/athlete/what have you comes from a metropolis particularly well known for bearing so much successful fruit doesn't automatically mean their success isn't earned on merit, or that they should begrudged it. I was sitting here thinking you were just another Golovkin chauvinist, seeing red at people claiming there was an argument for Jacobs having defeated him...but no, you've got some other weird city bias hangup that I can't even wrap my head around.
2. Another side by side case study. Look at young unbeaten Danny Jacobs. Now look at young unbeaten Fernando Guerrero. If we're being 100% honest? The hype was equal. If anything some casuals (and even diehards, even some very high profile boxing journalists!) remarked upon them being very similar overall packages (both lean ripped slick quick powerful-in-both-fists aggressive young black dudes in the same weight range) but with Guerrero having more upside. Let that sink in. Guerrero now, in hindsight, is looked at as a joke. A total bust of a prospect. But when they were both crushing cans on the way up, Guerrero was everybody's guy. If you made a poll in 2009 as to who would win h2h, it would be a landslide L for Danny. And that's with Guerrero being from middle-of-nowhere Salisbury, MD by way of the Dominican Republic...not exactly a hype hotbed. Then they both fought Sugar Shay Smith and Guerrero needed a robbery, while Jacobs had the hardest fought victory of his career but a clear victory nonetheless. That was when it first became apparent there were levels to this and Jacobs was on a level where he deserved his hype and Guerrero was on one where he didn't. And look at them both now. Guerrero has been retired for three years (without ever rising above the prospect/fringe contender tier) and he's only four months older than Jacobs...who is heading into his eighth career world title bout, against someone whose name is being bandied about in the p4p #1 conversation currently...and Jacobs isn't even a prohibitive underdog in that match. So yeah...there's hype...and then there's walking the walk. Jacobs has been doing it for years, unlike the Guerreros of the world.

 

...and I'm from Boston, really I should be at the front of the line to say "fuck anyone from NYC!"

 

What do you find more disturbing: his ears or Spence's areolas?

 

I actually think Jacobs might be game planning on a KO, and I'm like 35% confident he can get it. (the other 65% is a combination of him either getting robbed or losing on points legitimately)

If he can force the same kind of exchanges he did with Golovkin - and I believe he will try - he stands a great chance of clipping Álvarez with a counter and perhaps even reenacting his fateful moment with Pirog, but now in the driver's seat as opposed to being, well, the raccoon crossing the road. I think a lot of people were surprised when he traded up close with Golovkin like that, and still experience some cognitive dissonance about it even today. Golovkin is a big puncher, and Jacobs has been haunted by this reputation for being chinny - so how the hell did he go tit for tat and not end up asleep? Well, because first of all Jacobs isn't actually chinny - his punch resistance is probably above-average in the grand scheme. Pirog just caught him perfectly. That said, he isn't made of iron. Golovkin might have lost a step - not a ton, as @CST80 has pointed out, but a touch of his power from his prime has dissipated, just enough to make the difference between a certain blow landing and knocking out a guy with resistance in the average range, or him being shaken up for a moment but hanging around. Plus, over the years Jacobs has learned how to roll with shots pretty well, even on the inside, even while delivering his own stuff offensively.

If he could survive that with Golovkin, there's no reason to doubt he can with Canelo. I'm not ready to say that a) Golovkin has diminished enough or that b) Canelo 2.0 since he went from this lumbering oaf that goes his ears outboxed by Mayweather and Lara to some kind of boxer-puncher monstrosity with a claim on the p4p throne, has improved that much or demonstrated being that great a hitter at MW that we can say Canelo's power > GGG's. I don't buy that, one bit. Also, while his cojone-huggers will never cease to be irked by these reminders, we cannot forget that Canelo has an imperfect chin himself. GGG had him hurt in the second and tenth rounds but couldn't capitalize, and of course there was that Jose Cotto shot years ago that so many want to forget, when Álvarez was maybe one more flush connection away from going down a very different road than the petal-strewn path to El Dorado his career has been.

I have a little more faith in Jacobs' chin than in Canelo's, tbh - and I don't think Danny is going to bother with a protracted 12-round jab battle, where he'll almost certainly be declared the loser even if he wins.

 

So who IYO are the real genius or at least avant-garde thinkers Ginsberg barnacled himself to? Burroughs?

Anyway, do you go out of your way to withhold credit to any fighter from NYC just because that's where their tent is staked? Do you discriminate the same way against Cotto, for instance? Or how about Heather Hardy? Would you rather see some punk-ass little LA ***** like Kingry García make good on his hype than, say, Teófimo López just because Teó hails from the 917?

 

And in the weeds, how? They were frequently compared in 2008/9, and Guerrero was on the shortlist of those projected to be longtime p4p co-rulers alongside that other shoe-in for greatness, Yuriorkis Gamboa, once Mayweather and Pacquiao retired.

Yeah, I know, it seems embarrassing now, but in those days that's what a good many people believed.