Trainer Abel Sanchez takes some time to talk to Marcos Villegas of FightHub about Gennady Golovkin's big fight this weekend while talking about the fight everyone wants to see -- against Canelo Alvarez. Check out some excerpts of what he had to say...
On if Jacobs is the best fighter Golovkin has faced thus far:
"Danny Jacobs is probably the most intelligent fighter, the best boxing IQ as I like to say it, of the fighters that we've fought. He had a great amateur background, he's on a roll -- 12 knockouts in a row, or something like that -- very confident, he's beaten the hardest foe that could ever be beaten in cancer. So he's a guy that's going to come very motivated to the fight, very sure of himself and what he wants to do. But on the 18th when he steps through the ropes and does the first minute, I think he'll find out why it's been 23 [knockouts] in a row and Gennady is the kind of fighter that he is."
On why he's so confident that Golovkin will stop Jacobs:
"Well first of all everybody has an opinion and I have a biased one, obviously, because he's my fighter. Daniel is a heck of a talent but I believe that Golovkin is an exceptional talent. And on the 18th the first 3 or 4 rounds will be difficult, for both guys, there may be some scary moments in those rounds because Daniel is a big puncher, but I think by the time the 7th and 8th round come around that he will have worn him down and will be able to stop him."
On if Golovkin will box patiently like he did against Lemieux and use his jab a lot:
"We practice all facets of it. We practice boxing on the outside, boxing on the inside. We practice everything that may come up so that when the fight is there it's not nothing new. [Lemieux's] knockout of Curtis Stevens I think is a result of Gennady making him what he ended up being - which is a shell of what he was before he fought Golovkin. It's easier to knockout a guy that is not mobile and that's just standing there and not firing back. Lemieux is a big puncher, Lemieux is a bigger puncher than Danny Jacobs, a stronger puncher than Danny Jacobs, heavy handed, but Daniel's sharp. Daniel in the Quillin fight showed you that he can hurt you with one shot and he's a good finisher. So we're not taking anything for granted, assuming that he's not a big puncher..."
On if he thinks Golovkin facing Billy Joe Saunders is a bigger possibility than facing Canelo Alvarez:
"Well first of all Jacobs is a big hurdle to overcome, first. And Canelo has a big hurdle to overcome also. If both guys are successful I'm sure that Tom Loeffler and Herman brothers, the managers, are in the process of trying to set up the next one. Everything going well...there is a possibility of fighting in June sometime in Kazakhstan. I don't know if it will be Billy Joe Saunders but if it is Billy Joe Saunders that would give Gennady the fourth belt, if he's successful. So that has been his goal for the longest time, and doing that and winning, I hope the Canelo fight is done in September but there's a lot of ways to turn down a fight and they seem to be finding one after another.
On where he thinks the Canelo negotiations currently stands:
"There was an article in one of the sites that said that Eric [Gomez] was saying that if we fought in June it puts the September fight in jeopardy because it wasn't enough time to promote it. Heck, this fight has been promoted for the last two years!...I think the fight is the fight that's best for boxing and the best fight that can be made in boxing right now but we're not gonna hold Gennady back on the chance that there is a fight in September...This year we hope to fight four times, that's what [Gennady] wants...
"Canelo knows, and Eric knows, what it's gonna take for Gennady to fight him in September and they just need to quit making excuses by making pretenses, like I said, about the June [fight]."
On if they're getting aggravated by constantly answering questions about the Canelo fight:
"It's not frustrating for me. It is frustrating for Gennady because he hates people that just talk. If you want to fight, let's fight. But obviously this is a business and Gennady put himself in this position by not only his [KO] streak but the method of getting to that streak of knockouts to be dealt with fairly...we don't need Canelo, Canelo can go on about his business and be the fake middleweight that he wants to be but we're gonna continue doing what we're doing with Gennady and if it happens it happens, if it don't, that's okay.
"I think the fans hope it happens. I don't think Canelo hopes it happens because he knows he gets knocked out, and Oscar [De La Hoya] knows that too, so if the fans keep pushing it...and demand a reason why not from them, then if it doesn't happen it won't be [the fan's] fault..."