By Keith Idec

Abel Sanchez wasn’t the least bit impressed with how Daniel Jacobs fought Saturday night.

Gennady Golovkin’s trainer thinks Jacobs “looked terrible” during his 12-round victory over Maciej Sulecki. Sanchez attributes Jacobs’ slippage to going 12 hard rounds against Golovkin in their middleweight title fight 13 months ago at Madison Square Garden.

Brooklyn’s Jacobs (34-2, 29 KOs) dropped Poland’s Sulecki (26-1, 10 KOs) in the 12th round and beat him by unanimous decision in a 12-round middleweight battle HBO televised from Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Sulecki consistently landed his right hand, though, and made their WBA elimination match more competitive than the lopsided odds suggested it would be (117-110, 116-111, 115-112).

“Danny Jacobs was supposed to demolish Luis Arias and had a difficult time with him in his first fight after Gennady,” Sanchez said during a conference call Monday to promote the Golovkin-Vanes Martirosyan fight on Saturday night.

“And now, in this fight against Sulecki, he looks terrible. He gets hit with everything in the book. But the reason being, in my opinion and I think in the opinion of our team, is that once you go 12 rounds with Golovkin, you’re never gonna be the same.”

Jacobs beat Milwaukee’s Arias easier than he defeated Sulecki, but Arias (18-1, 9 KOs) was reluctant to trade with the powerful Jacobs during their 12-rounder November 11 at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York. By beating Sulecki, Jacobs became the mandatory challenger for Golovkin’s WBA 160-pound championship.

Jacobs wants a rematch against Kazakhstan’s Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs), who likely will head toward a rescheduled rematch with Canelo Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) if he overcomes Martirosyan (36-3-1, 21 KOs) on Saturday night at StubHub Center in Carson, California (HBO). If Jacobs gets Golovkin in the ring again, Sanchez suspects their rematch wouldn’t be as competitive as their first fight, which Golovkin narrowly won (115-112, 115-112, 114-113).

“You know, it’s not only Jacobs,” Sanchez said. “If you go back to [David] Lemieux, to Curtis Stevens, to [Dominic] Wade, to Willie Monroe, they’re never the same. They’re never the same after they go rounds [with Golovkin] – [Martin] Murray, also, the young man from England has never been the same since Gennady fought him.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.