Middleweight Jacobs outfought cancer

NEW YORK >> Danny Jacobs has already won a bout with cancer. So facing even as formidable an opponent as middleweight powerhouse Gennady Golovkin isn’t frightening.

The WBA champion is a decided underdog for this weekend’s unification fight at Madison Square Garden. Sure, he might have the more descriptive nickname, “Miracle Man,” compared with Golovkin’s “GGG,” but Jacobs recognizes he doesn’t have the resume or the reputation of the WBC, IBF and IBO titleholder.

What Jacobs has gained in experience outside the ring is a boost that can’t be measured.

“I definitely think I am a more mentally strong fighter and I’m better all around,” Jacobs says. “He’s not cancer, not a life-threatening situation. This is a man coming to inflict pain on you.

“Where’s it’s helped is in my mental capacity. Having everything dealt me, I don’t question myself. It’s instilled in me, and I believe in myself.”

Jacobs was on a USO visit to troops in Iraq six years ago when he began feeling pain in his legs. At first it was misdiagnosed before an examination showed bone cancer: a tumor on his spine.

At the time, he was 10-1 and just making his way through the boxing ranks. Suddenly, shockingly, he was wondering not if he’d return to the ring, but if he’d be able to walk normally; Jacobs says his legs were paralyzed for six weeks.

His fitness as a fighter helped get Jacobs through the grueling radiation treatments that followed a six-hour surgery. His hiatus lasted 19 months.