Daniel Jacobs suffered the third loss of his career on Saturday night, dropping a competitive but clean decision to Canelo Alvarez in the DAZN main event from Las Vegas.
Jacobs (35-3, 29 KO) spoke at the post-fight press conference about possibly moving up in weight, how he felt, whether he felt he did enough to win, and some of his tactics.
On his performance
“I gotta go back and watch this performance. I didn’t feel my best. I felt as if I did enough to get the victory, especially the conversations I had with my cornermen. I know it was back-and-forth action. For me, it was really hard to get the rhythm of Canelo. I felt once I got the rhythm, then I started to push him back and it became a really, really competitive fight.
“I’m just hopeful that you guys enjoyed the fight. This was, for me, a great experience being a part of such a big event as this. It doesn’t get any higher than this, and I’m just grateful to have this opportunity to please all the fans that tuned in and everyone that showed up tonight.
“Canelo is a warrior, obviously. For me, I just have to go back to the drawing board and see what I can do better. It’s questionable for me if I’m gonna stay in the middleweight division because it is taking a toll on my body and it’s showing. I might have outgrown the middleweight division, and I might take my talents to super middleweight. We’ll see. I’ll talk to my team. But for the most part, I thought I did enough to win. Once I go back to see this fight on the replay, I’ll be able to give a better assessment.”
“I gave everything that I thought I could. Man, it was a great experience. I just love to go in there and give a great showing of boxing. I had a perfect opponent to go inside there and battle with me to give you guys a great show. This will not be the end of me. I’m sure you guys will see me very soon.”
On the second-day weigh-in
“It didn’t play into my mind at all. I knew it was a sacrifice that I had to take because the 10-day weigh-in for me was just a lot. Just me rehydrating with water, I shot up to 170. That was just water alone, so I knew that my body definitely needed to rehydrate, and I definitely needed to put a little bit more in my system. That was the sacrifice that I took. Me and my team came up with the plan that that would be the best decision for me to go in there and give my all, and be more depleted than what we already was. I’m a naturally big guy, and I might have just overgrown the middleweight division.”
On his next moves
“Hopefully I gained a couple fans as well. ... I still think that I have a career that should be thriving after this. The super middleweight division is still jam-packed. We’ll see what happens.”
On his slow start
“I don’t believe that I lost the first five rounds. I did think that it took maybe two to three rounds for me to get his rhythm, and I thought he would be a little bit more active than what he was. He’s a strong force. Even though I’m the bigger guy, you can tell he was there to fight. We both was bangin’, we both was landing, and it’s just one of those things that you can go back-and-forth with the judging style, or how you gauge an actual fight. Only thing I can do is go back to the tapes and make my assessment on it.”
On Canelo’s defense
“He’s definitely a little tricky. I’ve always known Canelo had great upper body movement, and that’s what he displayed. I’ve been vocal about that this whole press tour. I knew what we were facing. But I just thought that I did enough to kind of tweak it out in my mind. But I take my hat off to him. I’m not one of those guys who — even in a close decision, I still tip my hat off to the man facing me across the ring, because it takes a true champion to get inside the ring with anybody at this level.”
On switching stances in the fight
“I do think that I was very effective in my southpaw stance. I wanted to trade a little bit more, but his timing was really good as far as knowing when to punch and when to kind of back off. For me it’s really just about going back to the drawing board and seeing what I can do better.”