Closing out HBO Boxing’s 45 years is none other than the Miracle Man.
This Saturday, “The Miracle Man” returns to bless New York City.
Brooklyn’s favorite son, Daniel Jacobs, fights on HBO Sports and heads to the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden for an explosive triple header of World Championship Boxing.
Daniel Jacobs vs. Sergiy Derevyanchenko, Alberto Machado VS. Yuandale Evans and Heather Hardy vs. Shelly Vincent 2 by the HBO Sports team will call the action, which will be their last on the network that pioneered pay-per-view and the look and feel of the prizefighting business.
The new middleweight division features a now newly crowned middleweight juggernaut in Canelo Alvarez. With other champions including Demetrius “Boo Boo” Andrade and interim WBC champion, Jermall Charlo, the landscape is ripe in a post-Gennady Golovkin world.
“I’m excited to be back in New York City fighting in my hometown,” said Jacobs via release. “This opportunity for a world title is one I don’t take lightly and I’m preparing myself to be in an incredible fight with Sergey Derevyanchenko. I’ve always felt that I was the best middleweight in the world with this type of fight I’m that much closer to all that glory and to proving to the world I am the best.”
After Daniel Jacobs (34-2, 29 KOs) lost a unanimous decision to GGG in 2017, losing his WBA (Regular) middleweight title in the process, Jacobs has been on the hunt for another title. His first move was to sign with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing USA as the first and largest State-side signee to the U.K. boxing promoters stable. Fighting Luis Arias and then Maciej Sulecki both to a unanimous victory, Jacobs will take on an opponent that he knows well in Ukraine native Sergiy Derevyanchenko (12-0, 10 KOs).
Derevyanchenko, who is making his HBO debut is looking to keep his perfect record intact, showcase his considerable ring skills and pull off a stunner.
Born in Feodosia, Crimea, Ukraine, and now based in Brooklyn, NY, Derevyanchenko was a touted amateur, compiling an astonishing record of 390-20, as well as a 23-1 ledger in the World Series of Boxing, and representing Ukraine in the 2008 Olympics, before turning pro in July 2014. Known as “The Technician,” Derevyanchenko is fundamentally sound with superb reflexes, deft defense and devastating power, having stopped 10 of his 12 professional opponents thus far.
In a final IBF eliminator for mandatory status, Derevyanchenko proved he could carry his power into the later rounds, halting Tureano Johnson in the 12th and final frame of their August 2017 clash. One year earlier, Derevyanchenko knocked out former world champion Sam Soliman, becoming only the second man to do so, inside two rounds in July 2016, in an IBF elimination bout for the #2 ranking.
In a red-hot division, this is one of the most anticipated bouts which many feel will place Jacobs back in contention for top-tier middleweight matches. With Canelo Alvarez having officially signed to new combat sports streaming service DAZN, and Matchroom Sports having all of its clients not named Jacobs on the service, it is almost a certainty that Jacobs will retire HBO Boxing and jump over to the new revolution in combat sports broadcasting.
With both fighters have been trained by Brooklyn’s own Andre Rozier for the Oct. 27 showdown, Rozier will be in Jacobs’ corner, while Gary Stark Sr. mans the corner for Derevyanchenko making the bout both unique and a reminder of the old broadcast brigade now going out to pasture.
