The rise and fall of Danny Jacobs
The last few months haven’t been so golden for Golden Boy Promotions. First the massive boxing promotion company, co-managed by Richard Schaefer and Oscar de la Hoya, seemed to lose definitively in the Floyd Mayweather saga. It’s unclear what, if anything, will result from that, but Schaefer did himself no favours by responding to statements made last week by Don King about Floyd Mayweather. And anyway, Golden Boy was already being punished for accusing Pacquiao of doping, consequently getting a lawsuit slapped in their faces.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, there was the July 31st defeat of Danny Jacobs handed on a plate to Golden Boy by Dmitry Pirog. Before the loss, undefeated Jacobs was heralded as Golden Boy’s future—talent wise and financial wise—but with his knockout loss Golden Boy was forced to face the fact that they just lost a golden prospect in an undefeated WBO Middleweight titlist who could have raked in a lot green.
Adding to the appeal of Jacobs was his story—here’s this young kid with a 20-0 record, (17 of them coming by way of knockout) from the same Brooklyn as Mike Tyson and Riddick Bowe (both of whom won heavyweight titles). Here’s this kid who started boxing at the age of 13 and won the 2003 junior Olympics national title. Then he won golden glove championships at the middleweight level. While he missed a shot at the 2008 Olympics, by that point he had no less than prodigious manager Al Haymon and Golden Boy in his corner, and was off to the races.
To be fair, the Pirog bout was not without its share of controversy. At no point would you really have been able to argue Jacobs was dominating. But when he took the knockout blow on the chin and hit the canvas he attempted to get up, only to be stopped by referee. And when he was held down, presumably in the interest of his own safety, he can be visibly seen yelling at the ref to let him get up. Instead the bout was waved off. At any rate, this wasn’t something Jacobs pursued. Instead he seemed to accept the loss and the call by the ref, demonstrating finally that Pirog really should have been given the vacant WBO title.
After the fight many analysts accused Golden Boy of “sheltering” fighters, and the criticism is not without merit. German promotion company Universum has long-time been accused of the same thing—in fact Gennady Golovkin, one of the top middleweight prospects in the world right now, recently severed a contract with Universum for precisely the reason that he felt they weren’t giving him good opportunities. But in the case of Danny Jacobs, it ultimately proved to be entirely true: Jacobs simply wasn’t prepared to take on a real contender because he hadn’t been prepared for it in previous bouts.
What needs to be remembered here is that in the boxing industry today, boxers aren’t, first of all, boxers. From the perspective of the promotion company they are valuable financial assets. Capital. That’s why it makes complete and perfect sense for Golden Boy and Universum to “shelter” fighters, and why there is merit in that claim. It’s in promoters’ interest to shelter fighters, because it’s in this way they can assure a fighter can build up a flawless record (say, Jacobs’s 20-0) that will put him in position for a title fight. And of course it’s the title fights that attract the dollars.
Will Jacobs be able to give it another try? It depends. He’s shown he has the talent and the athletic ability, but what’s truly lacking seems to be the drive. Without the willpower, which seemed totally absent in the Pirog bout, he might as well hang up the gloves now.
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