I?m going to start this off by stating flat-out in language as clear as possible?Daniel Jacobs absolutely CAN beat Saul ?Canelo? Alvarez this Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Yeah, he can get a judges? decision. And, nope, he doesn?t have to knock Canelo out to get the win, either.
All IBF middleweight champ Jacobs has to do is win a majority of the rounds?decisively?and he?ll take home a victory and, with the ?W,? Canelo?s WBA and WBC middleweight belts. Notice the word ?decisively.?
If you really follow boxing, it should come as no surprise to you that the ?house? or ?money? fighter always has the upper hand coming into any fight. This is nothing new in the sport and it?s standard business practice across the board, from small club shows to major PPV events. The better-connected fighter who means more, financially, to the organizers of the card will always get the favored treatment when it comes to, well, everything from scorecards to officiating to contractual stipulations to the layout of the fight poster.
In boxing, a ?visitor? will always need to do more to secure a win over the ?home? fighter. And this happens at all levels of the game. Jacobs, for example, would be the guy getting the benefit of the doubt on the judges? scorecards if he were fighting Curtis Stevens Saturday night and not Canelo Alvarez.
Gennady Golovkin, who whined mightily after both non-wins against Alvarez and created waves of pitiful whiny laments from his loyal Golovkinites, could?ve walked away with two wins instead of a draw and a loss if?just like Jacobs can do this weekend? he had gone in the ring and won rounds decisively against the red-headed Mexican star.
Instead, GGG didn?t do much to separate himself from Canelo to clearly win many rounds at all. Arguments could be made about which rounds he edged, but the reality is that he fought to close calls in most and certainly in the majority of those questionable lost rounds on the official scorecards. Maybe Golovkin settling on close rounds comes from the fact that he had enjoyed the home team/house fighter advantage for every other fight of his career. Let?s not even pretend that his unanimous decision win over Jacobs back in March of 2017 couldn?t just as easily have been a draw or a win for Jacobs, if not for the fact that the judges gave the money fighter, Golovkin, the benefit of the doubt on some very close rounds.
If Jacobs, like Golovkin, doesn?t clearly take rounds and create separation between him and Canelo, he will lose. Business will keep most, if not all, close rounds from being given to the lesser draw. And this isn?t even to imply that the favoritism is intentional or that there?s any sort of nefarious conspiracy in place to keep the money fighter winning. The cheat is built into the system at this point and there?s no longer any real need to ?put the fix in? when ?the fix? is part of standard procedure.
From a competitive sporting perspective, this dynamic isn?t fair. In the ?real? sports world, the score is the score and a point is a point. But boxing is NOT like all the other sports. In boxing, the scoring is subjective and promoters have a great hand in selecting those judging and officiating their own fighters? bouts. The system is made to be corrupted and, maybe worst of all, fans and media have come to expect and accept it.
A fighter has to know all of this before coming into the ring with someone the business might favor over him and he has to be made aware of how much harder he?ll have to work to pull off a victory.
Again, it?s not fair. But whoever said boxing life was fair? A fighter has to do whatever he can, however he can, to secure victory and, down the line, gain those same advantages he saw as disadvantages on the way up. He simply doesn?t have time for fighting the system while fighting opposition.
The battle for ?fair? will have to be left in the hands of those with time to handle such slow-moving, lengthy wars.
