9:03 pm | May 4, 2019 | Go to Source | Author:
LAS VEGAS — Canelo Alvarez, boxing’s biggest star, scored one of his biggest wins on Saturday night. In a performance in which he mixed offensive firepower, boxing skills and sound defense, Alvarez won a unanimous decision over Daniel Jacobs to unify three middleweight world titles, leaving him one shy of the undisputed 160-pound championship, before a wildly pro-Alvarez crowd on Cinco de Mayo weekend at T-Mobile Arena.
Alvarez won by scores of 116-112, 115-113 and 115-113 in the year’s biggest fight of the year so far. ESPN also had Alvarez winning 116-112 in the second fight of his five-year, 11-fight, $365 million deal with the sports streaming service DAZN that he signed last fall.
Jacobs came into the ring with a size advantage that was enhanced by the fact that he missed weight for a contractual Saturday morning weight check. They made weight at Friday’s official weigh-in, Alvarez at 159.5 and Jacobs at 160, but they had a contractual clause that called for neither to be over 170 at the morning weight check or face financial penalties. While Alvarez checked in at 169 pounds, Jacobs was 173.6 pounds, meaning a $1 million fine of his more than $10 million guarantee.
Despite Jacobs’ obvious size advantage it was not an issue for Alvarez (52-1-2, 35 KOs), 28, of Mexico, who was making the first defense of the two belts he won from Gennady Golovkin by majority decision in September.
Alvarez then went to super middleweight to face overmatched Rocky Fielding in December and knocked him out in the third round to win a secondary world title but he always intended to return to middleweight, which he did to face Jacobs in a much-anticipated fight.
The fight began slowly with Alvarez coming forward and trying to make the fight while Jacobs (35-3, 29 KOs), 32, of Brooklyn, New York, was content to go backward and only fire the occasional punch.
The crowd began to chant “Mexico! Mexico!” in the second round in which Alvarez continued to go after Jacobs and land body punches. Alvarez also connected with flush jabs while most of Jacobs’ came up short of the target.
Alvarez landed a left hand that rocked Jacobs’ head back in the early moments of the fourth round in a fight he was controlling with his activity level and crisp punches, not to mention very sound defense.
Jacobs, who claimed a vacant belt by split decision over Sergiy Derevyanchenko in October and was making his first defense, didn’t seem to have much of a plan. He missed with wild punches, could barely land his jab and spent stretches backing up.
Jacobs, who sometimes switched between right-handed and southpaw stances, finally got something going in the sixth round with a flurry that backed Alvarez up and he continued to land more shots in the seventh, including a big left hand.
There was fierce back-and-forth action in the eighth round when both landed solid punches during lengthy exchanges but it was Alvarez who seemed to stun Jacobs multiple times, including with a right hand and a hook behind it.
There was more sustained action in the ninth when they took turns landing powerful shots. Jacobs landed his best punches of the fight when he connected with a pair of clean left hands, although Alvarez took them well.
Jacobs’ right eye was swelling by the 10th round but he unloaded some heavy punches on Alvarez with him along the ropes in one of his best sequences of the fight. Alvarez appeared to bounce back in the 11th round and they came for the 12th round firing.
Jacobs launched a left hook that he missed badly as he slipped to the mat on the wet canvas. Referee Tony Weeks called a timeout to clean up the moisture and when the fight resumed Alvarez landed a left hook to the head. With a minute left in the fight he landed an uppercut, and they finished in a heated exchange that brought the crowd to its feet.
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