We’ve grown accustomed to Friday Night Fights and Saturday Night Fights, but Monday Night Fights?
It sounds good to Danny Jacobs. This Monday, the middleweight contender from Brooklyn will face former world title challenger Giovanni Lorenzo of Manhattan in the main event of a boxing card at the Best Buy Theater in Times Square.
The bout headlines the first of the Golden Boy Live Series to be televised by Fox Sports 1. For Jacobs, it’s another step in his comeback after being out of the sport for nearly two years while battling bone cancer.
Jacobs (25-1, 22 KOs) is 3-0 since his return in October and hopes a victory over Lorenzo (32-5, 24 KOs) will keep him on track for another shot at a world title.
“I feel like I’m getting better and better,” said Jacobs, who fought a total of 10 rounds in those three bouts. “During that year and a half I was off, I had time to sit back and look at my flaws and see what I could do better. When I got back we were working on those things I had problems doing before and were bad habits. I’ve been slowly, but surely, changing those habits.”
The boxing card, which begins at 7:45 p.m. with televised bouts set for 9 p.m., is the first of a scheduled 24 in the series to be held throughout the country and promoted by Golden Boy Promotions. Also on the card, unbeaten light middleweight Eddie Gomez (14-0, 9 KOs) of The Bronx faces Steven Upsher Chambers (24-2-1, 6 KOs) of Philadelphia and 2012 Olympian Marcus Browne of Staten Island looks to improve on his record of 5-0 with five knockouts.
Jacobs and Lorenzo will meet in a scheduled 10-round bout for the vacant WBC Continental Americas middleweight championship. It’s viewed as a step toward better things for Jacobs, who at 26 feels he’s more dedicated to his craft after his career — his life — was threatened by the cancer.
“Pre-cancer I didn’t have that drive I needed,” Jacobs said. “I wanted to become a world champion, but I was lacking the drive. The downtime I had not only gave me the opportunity to appreciate the sport, but also pinpoint the things I needed to fix as far as my talent.”
The Best Buy Theater, formerly known at the Nokia Theater, is the latest venue to hold big-time boxing in New York, joining such establishments as Madison Square Garden, the Garden Theater, Barclays Center, Roseland Ballroom and BB Kings.
“New York City is getting to the point where it’s dominating the sport with all these different outlets,” noted Jacobs, who last night hosted a fundraiser for his Get In The Ring Foundation, of which he said, “It gives guys a chance to fulfill their dreams and it’s important to me to be the guy that sets that tone.”
Tickets for Monday’s card are priced from $35 to $125.
* Hard-punching Sergey Kovalev of Russia looks to capture the WBO light heavyweight title today when he challenges title-holder Nathan Cleverly in Cardiff, Wales. The bout will be televised by HBO at 9:45 p.m. ET. Kovalev (21-0-1, 19 KOs) doesn’t mind facing Cleverly (26-0, 12 KOs) in his native country.
“It doesn’t concern me at all,” Kovalev said. “This is the fight I’ve waited for, and I am confident that I will do my best.”
Cleverly has said he’s not afraid of going toe-to-toe with Kovalev, but that might be foolish.
“Once he gets hit the first time, he’s going to become one of two things,” said John David Jackson, Kovalev’s trainer. “He’s either going to go into defensive mode, or he’s going to become too brave for his own good. Either way, it’s not a problem for Sergey.”