Saturday night on HBO, consensus number three ranked middleweight Daniel “The Miracle Man” Jacobs main events a tripleheader against unbeaten Luis Arias. This will be British power promoter Eddie Hearn’s promotional debut in the United States. Rising American heavyweight prospect Jarrell Miller will be featured in the co-main event.
Luis Arias (18-0, 9 KOs) is coming off an excellent performance on the undercard of Andre Ward’s stoppage rematch win over Sergey Kovalev. On that night this past June, Arias dominated every second against then fellow fringe contender Arif Magomedov. It was supposed to be an even fight and it ended up a rout. Arias was abnnle to land at will and easily put the fight away in the fifth round.
As good as the 27 year old Milwaukee born and based middleweight looked against Magomedov, that is the entirety of his resume at any sort of respectable level. In truth, Arif Magomedov is probably not a particularly high level opponent even then. This is all to say that I don’t think we know what we are getting out of Luis Arias on Saturday. He could be a solid opponent or he could go out there and get trucked.
Danny Jacobs (32-2, 29 KOs) certainly brings the power to make that happen if he catches Arias early. Unlike his opponent, Jacobs came up a major prospect. Then signed to Golden Boy, he made his pro debut on the 2007 mega PPV headlined by Floyd Mayweather Jr against Ricky Hatton. The Brownsville fighter rose steadily through the ranks until his first title shot against fellow major prospect Dimitri Pirog in 2010. He got caught in the fifth and finished a bit of a surprise, but coming back from that night proved even more difficult than anyone could have imagined.
In 2011 at age 24, Danny Jacobs was diagnosed with osteosarcoma when a malignant tumor formed around his spine. Partially paralyzed, Jacobs was told he may never walk again, nevermind fight. Against all odds, just 19 months later, Danny Jacobs was back in the ring stopping another man in the first round. A Miracle Man was born.
Jacobs has done quite well for himself since his near impossible return to the sport. He understandably took a couple years to really get going again, but when he did so he did it with a bang punctuated by a first round demolition of then unbeaten middleweight secondary title holder Peter Quillin. That fight plus two wins over former fringe contender Sergio Mora set Jacobs up for the biggest night of his career.
After twelve rounds with middleweight king Gennady “GGG” Golovkin this March, many, myself included, had the fight scored for the challenger. He had to survive an early knockdown to get to the end, but Jacob’s significant size and athleticism at times stymied GGG. It was a close fight and the decision was far from a robbery, but I did score it for Jacobs.
Now The Miracle Man has signed with a surprise promoter, British promotional leader Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing. Hearn’s company will be going under the name Matchroom USA as he tries to expand across the Atlantic. That announcement was as much of a left field bit of randomness as any I can remember as Eddie had no American presence whatsoever prior to picking up Jacobs.
Hearn is also bringing two other fights to this card. The co-main event pits American heavyweight Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller (19-0-1, 17 KOs) versus Poland’s Mariusz Wach (33-2, 17 KOs). Miller is a huge heavyweight, weighing in just shy of 300 lbs in his last two fights. He is more mobile than the weight would suggest, however, and stamina didn’t prove to be a major issue in his career best win against Gerald Washington in May when he stopped the former title challenger in May.
Wach is a good opponent for Miller. Top heavyweights in Alexander Povetkin and Wladimir Klitschko had an easy time with him, but he also has a few decent win over more middling talent. He too is coming off a career best win over Erken Teper. This fight is important for the division as Hearn is potentially positioning Big Baby Miller as a future opponent for his cash cow in unified heavyweight titlist Anthony Joshua. Obviously Jarrell would need to prevail here to make that happen.
Opening the show is a welterweight showdown between local popular Long Island attraction Cletus Seldin (20-0, 16 KOs) and Mexican domestic level fighter Roberto Ortiz (35-1-2, 26 KOs). Based on their styles, this should be a decent scrap in terms of watchability. It is so many grades below the traditional HBO standard, however, that it is strange to see on the televised portion of the card. Neither of these men are particularly close to my top 25 at welterweight. Seldin will be favored, but I’ll admit that I do not have a good read on the matchup.
The card will air 10 PM Eastern Saturday night on HBO.
