Canelo Alvarez vs Daniel Jacobs: What Las Vegas history tells us about American’s chances of pulling off upset

The Miracle Man bids to do what Gennady Golovkin could not in two fights against the golden boy from Mexican

When Canelo Alvarez was announced as “the new” middleweight world champion last September, attention turned to the Mexican team’s wild celebrations, but it was impossible to ignore the solemn look on Gennady Golovkin’s face.

The Las Vegas ring almost buckled with the sport’s most famous packed inside the ropes to hear the judges’ decision, yet Golovkin looked alone and isolated, his eyes flicking towards the lights on the roof of the arena.

He knew: less outraged and more disgusted at what he had just heard, the cameras showed him boiling up inside, perhaps more upset at himself for not anticipating this ordeal once again. Cruelly denied by a majority draw in their first clash, a razor-thin decision loss in the rematch, while more fathomable, brought an element of deja-vu.

Welcomed back to the bright lights on Saturday after a brief hiatus in the Big Apple to dispatch Rocky Fielding, Canelo now defends his middleweight gold, glistening as the face of the sport and seemingly at the height of his powers – both in and out of the ring after clinching an astonishing $365 million (£279m) deal with streaming platform DAZN, who hope in collaboration with the Mexican to end pay-per-view in the States.

The fight will be playing out inside Daniel Jacobs‘ mind as the hours draw nearer, conjuring up scenarios he must mentally prepare himself for. The American, who overcame cancer in 2011, is a two-time world champion, yet now he can almost touch the throne. After Canelo finally separated himself from Golovkin, no matter what fans think of the second contest’s outcome, the ‘Miracle Man’ would propel himself into the pound-for-pound rankings and seize the No 1 spot in the middleweight division with victory on Saturday. But how can that actually happen? Unable to shake Golovkin in his points defeat in 2016, combined with Canelo barely wobbling throughout 72 minutes at close quarters with the fearsome Kazakh, you suspect Jacobs’ team have considered scratching a stoppage from their game plan.

And while the majority considered the decision to favour Golovkin in their contest at Madison Square Garden in 2017, Jacobs vehemently disputes it to this day. So it is natural to assume he could be screwed by the cash cow of the sport too, especially when you consider just one card of the six across both fights favoured Golovkin. So can Jacobs actually win?

Oscar De La Hoya, promoter of Canelo, believes so, himself the Golden Boy, who was peeved on several occasions in his career when his status, he would argue, should have seen him favoured in several disputable tussles.

“Anyone can lose in Las Vegas. I lost in Vegas and apparently I was always the favorite,” De La Hoya told Ring TV in a bid to temper any bubbling outrage inside the Brooklyn challenger.

“Anybody can lose and I would be surprised if Daniel Jacobs is thinking about that because I know what a professional he is. I can tell you Canelo is going in there with the mentality of winning and I expect Jacobs to do the same. Don’t worry about the judges; worry about the fight.”

Canelo silences his critics as he emerges with the victory over Golovkin. (AP)

De La Hoya will certainly have regrets from his career after seeing the judges snub him in a majority decision against Felix Trinidad in 1999 and a unanimous decision (all three concurred at 115-113) in 2003 against Shane Mosley – who would later admit to using doping agent EPO in preparation for the fight.

Before he became ‘Money’, Floyd Mayweather Jr also received a contentious split decision victory against De La Hoya in 2007.

So Jacobs can somewhat pin his hopes on history in that regard, yet the present involves Dave Moretti, Glenn Feldman and Steve Weisfeld, the exact three men who were so enchanted by Canelo’s work last September.

Daniel Jacobs takes on the face of the sport in Vegas (Getty Images)

Aside from the draw against Golovkin and a loss to Mayweather Jr, the most one-sided majority decision of recent times, Canelo has been favoured six times in eight bouts in Vegas, which includes the split decision win over Erislandy Lara.

So while the focus on Saturday will be on the fighters, those three men sat ringside are likely to be called into action. Finding a way to beat Canelo is merely half the puzzle, convincing that trio is the other.