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But they did have that in the contract...
The agreed to fight for all of GGG's belts (WBC, WBA, and IBF). The WBC has pre fight weight requirements that include a 30 and 7 day weigh ins and the IBF has a re-hydration clause that caps the gain at 10 lbs. from weigh ins to immediately pre-fight.
Jacobs made all the WBC checks without issue, as did GGG, but he just no-showed the IBF weigh in and opted not to fight for that belt. It doesn't seem crazy to think he planned this the entire time in order to get GGG to abide by the rules they'd agreed to while himself planning on ignoring them.
This isn't a fighter negotiating a fight at Caneloweight or getting bigger gloves or a 24x24 ring. This is a fighter agreeing to fight for a belt with a specific set of rules and then at the very last minute saying "nah". GGG's team can't call off the fight, even though they have every right to, because they'd never live it down so they don't really have an out.
valenzuela is right, it gave us a better fight so that's cool, but Jacobs was still dirty as hell there.
I don't think fight contracts work that way. You agree to fight at a certain weight and to do promotional stuff, that's really it. You agree to put up your belts, but I think the sanctioning fees are direct deals for each belt, not contracts with your opponent. Could be wrong, in any case, it didn't seem to surprise nor phase really anyone. HBO's team tried to make it a storyline, but literally nobody on GGG's side seemed the least bit surprised at this.
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Originally Posted by 00Snitch
I'm still not writing off Canelo v. GGG. GGG can tend to get hit a lot... not that it has ever phased him in the slightest... but that's super dangerous against Canelo. A few times it looked like Jacobs tagged GGG with that left body shot. Canelo loves that sh*t and doubling up the left hook. GGG's high guard makes him susceptible to Canelo's bodyshots imo.
Canelo's footwork is very rudimentary compared to Jacobs. However, Canelo is a much better counter puncher. He's faster than Jacobs. He's not more powerful, but he should be able to tag GGG with more shots. GGG should also be able to stick Canelo more too. If it comes down to a battle of the chins, I'll take GGG vs anyone at MW. Honestly, I think going chin vs chin against Jacobs would've been a higher % win strategy compared to what GGG did last night. GGG's strategy wasn't very smart if he wasn't going to really up the punch output (at least the jab) throughout the fight.
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Danny Jacobs: 6', 73 in reach
Canelo: 5'9", 70 in reach.
GGG: 5'10" 70 in reach
Yeah, Canelo is going to swell up to 175-185 by fight night, but he's not going to be much longer, if at all, than GGG. That, plus a lot of other things including their styles, will make GGG/Canelo a lot different than GGG/Jacobs.
GGG had that jab from the Lemieux fight back against DJ and it scored early and often. He landed a fair number of combos and lead rights but Jacobs did a really solid job of distancing himself from GGG's power most of the time (other times he's push forward and tie up, denying GGG a chance to throw quick, straight shots in close).
I don't think Canelo is going to take that line against GGG. He seems likely to try and bang with him thinking that his huge body shots and weaken GGG. No clue if he's right, but GGG does seem to leave every fight looking basically untouched despite having been clearly touched so who knows.
I think you're spot on. GGG wasn't banged up much at all vs Jacobs. Brook marked him up more and those were with weak shots. Jacobs hit him with a few good ones, but a lot more stuff was open handed. Last night was more about what GGG didn't (or couldn't) do vs Jacobs than what Jacobs did to GGG offensively. Jacobs fought a good defensive fight. GGG's offense was lacking, but he did fight good on defense given he was always pursuing. You can't really argue "he was just wide open and getting clipped all night" like some people tried to say after the Brook fight (the other coin is GGG couldn't just tag Jacobs at will like every other opponent, so you can calm the GGG die hards down too).