It had been more than eight years since Gennady Golovkin was taken to a decision, but in the end, he was just good enough to beat Daniel Jacobs. It was a unanimous, but close victory: 115-112, 115-112 and 114-113.
Golovkin’s 23-fight knockout streak was snapped. It was the first time in his career that one of his fights went at least 12 rounds. He’s now 19-0 with 18 knockouts in world-title fights. His 18 consecutive successful defenses is second all time among middleweights to Bernard Hopkins’ 20. Jacobs lost for the first time since 2010. The loss ended Jacobs’ streak of 12 straight knockouts.
Golovkin landed 38 percent of his punches to Jacobs’ 32 percent.
In Golovkin's last 2 fights, Kell Brook landed 33 percent of his total punches and Jacobs landed 32 percent of his total punches. Those are the two highest totals by any opponent against Golovkin in his 37-fight career.
Golovkin’s big advantage was in the first half of the fight. All three judges had Golovkin ahead by three points through the first six rounds. He outlanded Jacobs 102-65 in the first six rounds and then edged him 129-110 in the last six, withstanding 100 power punches from Jacobs. The power-punch success netted Jacobs the last three rounds on two of the three scorecards, but that was not enough to pull off the win.
