By Edward Chaykovsky

Abel Sanchez, trainer of WBA, WBC, IBF, IBO middleweight champion Gennady "GGG" Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs), is not surprised with Daniel Jacobs (32-2, 29 KOs) lasting the full twelve round distance in last month's fight.

The two boxers collided at New York's Madison Square Garden, with Golovkin winning a close twelve round unanimous decision with scores of 114-113, 115-112, 115-112.

The bout was the first time Golovkin saw the twelfth round and Jacobs snapped GGG's 23 fight knockout streak.

Coming into the fight, many predicted Jacobs would get knocked out because of his past KO loss to Dmitry Pirog and getting knocked down by light punching Sergio Mora.

Sanchez was not surprised by the resilience of Jacobs.

"Absolutely not, I said before the fight that I thought Danny was a very good fighter. I didn’t think the knockout by Pirog was something that I needed to think was going to happen with us. Jacobs wanted to get up and the referee wouldn’t let him in the Pirog fight, so I knew that Daniel was a very good fighter. The fact that he went out to Oakland to train at Virgil Hunter’s gym and really concentrate on the task at hand, showed that he was well prepared and he gave us the toughest fight of Gennady’s career, but I anticipated that," Sanchez told On The Ropes Boxing Radio. 

While Jacobs and his team believe they should have been awarded the win, but Sanchez disagrees. He gave Jacobs four rounds at most.

"No, I think the fight was 8-4. I thought it was 8-4 including the knockdown, so I was confident that he had done enough to with the fight," Sanchez said.

"We were going to win the fight because we fought a better fight and we did the things necessary to get the rounds. I thought that Golovkin may have been able to wear him down late in the fight, but it didn’t happen, and credit to Daniel and to Andre Rozier for having him as prepared as he did."