Jacobs: Mora is NOT on my level; Han beat him

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    Daniel JacobsOn Wednesday, June 17th, it was announced that WBA World middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs would make the second defense of his world title against former WBC light-middleweight titleholder Sergio Mora on Aug. 1 in the opening bout of Premier Boxing Champions on ESPN (9 p.m. ET).

    Mora’s most recent fight was against Abraham Han for the vacant USBA middleweight title. In a controversial decision, Mora escaped with a split decision victory despite being dropped in the 10th and being out-classed for a majority of the fight.

    I spoke with Jacobs at the media tent last Saturday outside the MGM Grand prior to Shawn Porter’s unanimous decision victory over Adrien Broner in a Premier Boxing Champions card on NBC, where I told Jacobs I had scored the Mora-Han fight 116-111 in favor of Han.

    “I did too, man!” Jacobs laughed.

    Mora briefly held the WBC World light-middleweight title after defeating Vernon Forrest by majority decision in June 2008 in a fight that Forrest admitted he had not trained properly for, yet the fight still could have gone either way.

    They held a rematch three months later at the MGM Grand, and with a fully prepared Forrest, white-washed Mora.

    “Vernon was right on point because you can see the second fight when he did actually train he said, ‘Oh, I’m gonna beat this guy up.’ He did just that.

    “I don’t view Sergio Mora as being on my level, but I’m going to train for him like he’s the most devastating, most ferocious, most athletic boxer that I’ve ever faced in my life.

    “No matter how I view him, he’s still a threat because he’s getting inside that ring, so that’s how I’m going to train.”

    At 34-years of age, Mora is nearing the end of his career. After several poor performance over the past couple of years, many in the boxing world are surprised he’s still being offered big fights, especially after getting dropped by Dashon Johnson, who at this point, has lost 13 of his last 16 fights.

    Jacobs still refuses to overlook his opponent.

    “I’m not overlooking him, but this is one of his last chances to really get a shot at a championship. He really isn’t a threat to the middleweight division at all.

    Since a fifth-round TKO loss to Dmitry Pirog in July 2010, Jacobs has knocked out or stopped his last nine opponents, and osteosarcoma on top of that, a rare bone cancer.

    While Mora has been dropped in his career as we mentioned previously, he has yet to be stopped, but he’s never faced a strong fighter in their prime in his career thus far. He’s going to be tested by the ‘Miracle Man.’

    “It’ll be interesting to see how he reacts to a true middleweight once he starts taking some of my punches because he’s never been stopped before, and I’m looking forward to it,” Jacobs said.

    In the past, Jacobs has said that it’s going to take a special guy to see the flaws in WBA Super World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin stating, “I believe I’m one of those guys.”

    So I asked him if he was willing to fight Golovkin in 2015, but Jacobs avoided the topic.

    “I’ve always wanted Peter Quillin first. I’ve been calling out Peter Quillin for quite some time.”

    Jacobs hopes to fight Quillin at the end of the year, but that’s also not a guarantee as Quillin failed to make weight for his last fight against Andy Lee in an attempt to regain his WBO middleweight title that he vacated.

    Jacobs is willing to fight Golovkin after a Quillin fight, but if Quillin moves up to the super-middleweight division, we could see Golovkin-Jacobs sooner than we anticipate.