Daniel Jacobs and Sergiy Derevyanchenko dispute the vacant IBF middleweight championship on Saturday night at the Hulu Theater in Madison Square Garden, New York City.
Nearly a decade ago, Daniel Jacobs’ boxing career looked like it was over after the fighter was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. But after battling cancer, Jacobs successfully returned to boxing in 2012 thus earning the moniker of the Miracle Man. A couple of fights later, Jacobs won the WBA (regular) middleweight title and slowly built a resume that would make him one of the best middleweights in the game today.
Jacobs enters this fight with a 34-2 record with 29 knockouts. The Miracle Man is coming off an April 2018 win over Maciej Sulecki and he’s now won two fights in a row since losing a close fight against Gennady Golovkin in March 2017. The loss to Golovkin snapped a string of 12 consecutive knockouts wins which began after Jacobs’ first career loss to Dmitry Pirog in his first ever world title fight.
The 31 year old New York native stands 6-0 and has a reach of 73 inches, making him tall and long for his division. His size alone makes him a tough matchup for any middleweight and his excellent in and out movement make him a difficult target for the plodding heavy hitters of this division. While Jacobs hasn’t recorded a knockout in two years, his record proves that he can end any fight on his own terms.
Sergiy Derevyanchenko enters this fight unbeaten in 12 fights with 10 knockouts to his credit. The Ukrainian has been dubbed as the mechanic and he may be so for a reason. Derevyanchenko is a very technical fighter who knows how to fix things inside the ring. So far, no one has been able to solve him.
At age 33 with a height of 5-9 and a reach of 67 inches, Sergiy Derevyanchenko is one of the feared punchers at middleweight. Not only is Derevyanchenko unbeaten, only two of his fights have gone past round six. Although the lack of mileage may be a weakness against his opponent, it also proves that Derevyanchenko has bad intentions. Because of his size and punching power, Derevyanchenko walks his opponents down and overwhelms them with his size and power.
This will be Sergiy’s 4th bouts since 2017 and he is coming off a win over Dashon Johnson who retired in round 6. Prior to that, Derevyanchenko stopped 2008 U.S. Olympian Tureano Johnson in the 12th round to become Golovkin’s mandatory challenger. Now he finally gets his first crack at a world championship but it won’t be an easy task.
Danny Jacobs has lost once in the last eight years and that loss was a close call against arguably the best middleweight in the business in Gennady Golovkin. Derevyanchenko hasn’t fought someone in Triple G’s caliber or someone near it.
Derevyanchenko has won his bouts by overwhelming his opponents. He won’t have that advantage here as Jacobs is a veteran of the spotlight. Derevyanchenko hasn’t fought in a fight of this magnitude while Jacobs is no stranger to this. The Miracle Man has fought bigger names and has held his own against the best.
Likewise, Jacobs won’t be overwhelmed because he has a three inch reach advantage plus a six inch edge in reach. With Jacobs having massive physical advantages here, Derevyanchenko won’t be able to walk down Jacobs the way he has his previous opponents. So it’s going to be interesting how Sergiy is going to approach this fight.
Derevyanchenko loves to work the body and if he is going to beat Jacobs, I think he will have to invest on that wisely. Jacobs went down against Golovkin so if Sergiy can chip away with the body shots, Jacobs is going to drop those hands and thus leave himself open against Derevyanchenko’s power shots.
But Derevyanchenko has to be extra careful when going on full offensive mode because Danny Jacobs is one of the best counter punchers in the division. We’ve seen 10 of Jacobs’ last 11 fights go the distance but if he gets an opening, he is going to punish Derevyanchenko with lovely counters.
Ultimately, I think the only way Derevyanchenko wins this fight is by knockout. Against Danny Jacobs, that is much easier said than done. This fight is happening in New York, Jacobs’ hometown so we know who the crowd will be rooting for. Jacobs’ advantage in experience and size are going to be too much for the unbeaten Mechanic. We’re picking Daniel Jacobs to beat Sergiy Derevyanchenko via unanimous decision on 10/28/18.
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