HBO Results: Daniel Jacobs takes hard-fought unanimous decision over Maciej Sulecki

Daniel Jacobs found himself in a real fight tonight on HBO, going toe-to-toe with Maciej Sulecki who really brought it to Jacobs for the full duration. But at the end of 12 rounds Jacobs took a unanimous decision win on official scores of 116-111, 117-110, and 115-112. I scored the fight 116-111 for Jacobs for BLH.

Sulecki showed a great work rate which seemed to disrupt a lot of Jacobs timing. That said, Jacobs showed his heart and skill once he began to take the fight to Sulecki’s body, making a concerted effort to target that area with his counter shots. And in the 12th round Jacobs landed a huge right hand that floored Sulecki.

Somehow, someway, Sulecki managed to not only make it back to his feet after that knockdown, but came back firing, getting into a shootout with Jacobs for the rest of the round. He clearly came into this fight in supreme condition.

With the win Jacobs (34-2, 29 KOs) becomes the WBA mandatory challenger at middleweight and said he was more than willing to take a fight against Jermall Charlo, who he’s been going back-and-forth with in recent months. Meanwhile Sulecki (26-1, 10 KOs) will have to fight his way back into a notable fight, but did show he has the skill and heart to compete at the top of the division.

Final CompuBox stats had Jacobs landing 205 of 631 total punches (32.5%) with Sulecki landing 143 of 657 (21.8%).