Daniel Jacobs has retired from professional boxing at 37 years old.
“[I’m] announcing my retirement,” Jacobs wrote.
“[I] want to show my gratitude and appreciation to the sport of boxing as it has changed my life in ways I never could imagine. It has instilled so many morals and values I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. Boxing made me the man I am today. It has always been my dream to be a champion in life and when boxing found me, I was a poor kid growing up in Brownsville, Brooklyn with not much to look forward to. As a young Black kid, I was being forced fed an identity that I wasn’t important or wouldn’t succumb to anything substantial in life. I was told [that] the ghetto that I grew up in was was full of criminals with no future and I [would] be a statistic just like my peers and the ones that came [before] me. [They told me that I would be] dead or in jail with no potential to make it out or to make a success of myself. I am now proud to say [that] I’m the rose that grew from concrete in Brooklyn. I’ve prove[d] so many people wrong.”
Jacobs is a 37-year-old native of Brooklyn who jumped on to the scene more than 20 years ago when he own the super welterweight division at the 2003 Junior Olympics. From there, he would go on to win a slew of amateur titles and tournaments, including the National Golden Gloves, New York Golden Gloves and the National Amateur Boxing Championships. In 2007, he turned professional on the undercard of the Ricky Hatton-Floyd Mayweather Jr. title fight. After winning his first 20 fights, he suffered the first knockout loss of his professional career at the hands of Dmitry Pirog. Jacobs bounced back from his first loss with two consecutive wins, but he would face a major challenge outside of the ring very soon.
In the midst of his professional career, Jacobs was diagnosed with bone cancer. After stepping back from boxing for more than a year, the Brooklyn-born fighter recovered from bone cancer and returned with a first-round knockout win against Josh Lutheran at the Barclays Center. From there, he would go 14-2 with 10 stoppages and winning two world titles in the process. Ultimately, his career came to a close with back-to-back losses against John Ryder and Shane Mosley Jr.
