By Keith Idec
Daniel Jacobs is convinced Billy Joe Saunders wants no part of him.
Saunders insists that isn’t true. In fact, if Saunders defeats Demetrius Andrade in what figures to be a difficult fight October 20 and can’t land a shot at the winner of the Gennady Golovkin-Canelo Alvarez rematch, the unbeaten WBO middleweight champion says he would want to face Jacobs next.
That’s assuming, of course, Jacobs can win his own troublesome bout versus Sergiy Derevyanchenko on October 27. Brooklyn’s Jacobs (34-2, 29 KOs) and Ukraine’s Derevyanchenko (12-0, 10 KOs) will fight for the vacant middleweight title the IBF stripped away from Golovkin for failing to meet his mandatory obligation against Derevyanchenko.
“Look, if the fight don’t end up taking place between me and the winner of Golovkin and Canelo, I’m not gonna keep, you know, chomping at it and begging for it,” Saunders told BoxingScene.com over the weekend in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
“But if it don’t come to me, I want Danny Jacobs and I’ll go back to America again. You know, Danny Jacobs was the next big thing out there. He was the one who had a great loss against Golovkin and I respect Danny Jacobs. You know, he’s a good fighter. I don’t take nothing away, but I know I’ll get the [better] of him.”
Jacobs said following his most recent victory over Maciej Sulecki that he would “love” to fight Saunders, even if it required traveling to the United Kingdom to make it happen. Jacobs expects Saunders to use the beef between their promoters, Eddie Hearn (Jacobs) and Frank Warren (Saunders), to prevent their fight from happening.
“It’s something that I’ve been pushing for a very long time,” Jacobs said in reference to facing Saunders. “But I think he’s been using his promoter – I think Eddie and him have a little beef, something like that. I don’t know. I don’t know too much about it.”
Hearn and Warren came to an agreement last month, however, for Saunders to fight Andrade, who’s now promoted by Hearn. The rival British promoters were forced toward ** that deal because Andrade is the mandatory challenger for Saunders’ title.
Saunders (26-0, 12 KOs) will travel to the United States to fight Andrade (25-0, 16 KOs), of Providence, Rhode Island, on October 20 at TD Garden in Boston (DAZN). The following Saturday night, HBO will televise the Derevyanchenko-Jacobs bout from The Theater at Madison Square Garden.
2023-10-21 16:26:48
