Jacob Bank vs William Scull breakdown and prediction

By Hisham Zaben

Jacob Bank (17-0) with nine wins coming inside the distance has a very tough fight ahead of him when he takes on cuban-born William Scull (23-1) on Jan. 26 in Kolding, Denmark. Jacob has looked very impressive in his last few fights especially in his last outing when he stopped Tyron Zeuge in five rounds. Zeuge was coming off a nice win over unbeaten Serhat Parlak and I personally thought that Zeuge would put up more resistance against Bank but he did not look good in the fight and seemed to have a problem with his leg after the fourth round where he fell down. From that moment on he looked like a man with a wooden leg. He was also starting to take a bad beating from Bank and he looked done. Zeuge´s face was all swollen and marked up. The referee had no choice but to jump in and save Zeuge from more punishment.

What I like about Jacob Bank is that it easy to see that he feels naturally strong and he punches hard. He seems to punch hard in the way where all the shots are thudding and powerful, more so than the snappy electric shots that some fighters have. One is not better than the other, the power is just delivered in a different way. His athletic and fitness ability looks very high and he also has foot speed to go along with his other attributes. In his most recent fight against Zeuge he was circling around Zeuge beautifully, sometimes off the back foot but coming back with hard, accurate counters connecting big on Zeuge.

I was surprised to read that Jacob Bank would be taking on such a tough challenge in facing a very experienced and good fighter like William Scull at this stage of his career. It is not only the fact that Bank is young at 24 years of age that would make me hesitate in putting him in with William Scull, because some fighters at that age, especially in America are very developed and gets their first title shot around that age. We just saw Abdullah Mason become the youngest champion in boxing right now at the age of 21. 

The problem for Bank in this fight, as I see it, is the fact that he hasn´t had the right fights yet to prepare him to face someone of Scull´s caliber. This is not to say that Banks isn´t talented enough to beat someone like Scull, maybe yes maybe no, but more so that he doesn´t have the right kind of experience to handle all the nuances that Scull will show him. 

The first fight that comes to mind when I think about this was when Anthony Yarde was unbeaten and went to russia to face, what was left of Sergey kovalev and he came close to winning but ultimately was knocked out. At that time Frank Warren agreed on the fight for his fighter and I remember Eddie Hearn giving his thoughts about the fight and what he said was basically that “Frank knows boxing in and out, and he knows that yarde shouldn´t be put in with Kovalev at this present time” because he lacked the needed fights to have endured before he would be ready for someone like Kovalev. 

Before facing Kovalev, Yarde who was 18-0 at the time, had never fought anything close to Kovalev and was coming off an easy knockout win against Travis Reeses (17-3-2) who he stopped in five rounds. Prior to Reeves, his resume was filled with opponents of a lesser tier who wouldn´t prepare you for someone like Kovalev.

Bank although he looked very impressive in his last fight has not faced any opponents who is anything close to William Scull. The best opponent that he has beaten was a faded-looking Tyron Zeuge who is known to sometimes perform good and sometimes very bad. Zeuge has a style that is right there for the picking. You don´t have to go looking for him and he is not difficult to land on. The only other decent fighter on his resume is Ralfs Vilcans who Bank beat by a unanimous decision in 2023.

William Scull has over 400 amateur fights and is a big guy fighting in the super middleweight division. He is coming of a defeat to boxing great Canelo Alvarez. Scull is a masterful counter boxer with great length and his feet are elite. He is not known for his agressiveness but he can do everything in a boxing ring. His best win came against Vladimir Shishkin who also is a very good boxer belonging without a doubt in the top 15 of the world. That fight was very close but Scull won it and became Champion of the world. 

As I see the fight, William Scull has all the advantages except fighting in Banks home town. Scull has the better jab, better foot work, better all-around technique, physically the stronger man and experience-wise it´s a landslide in favor of Scull. To have a good chance of winning this fight, Bank would need to have at least 3-4 fights more that would prepare him for such a fight of this magnitude and even then it would be tough.

The type of opponents missing from Banks resume that I would like to see before he faces someone like Scull are guys better than Zeuge but not as good as Scull, and guys that have a similar style of fighting if possible. I will give you some good examples of fights that would prepare Bank: 

Darius Fulghum, Bruno Surace, Immanuel Aleem, Kevin Newman, Shakeel Phinn, Steven Nelson, Esquiva Falcoa, Ronald Gavril, Wilkins Mathieu, Caleb Plant, Vladimir Shishkin, Raiko Santana, Maciej Sulecki..

Those would all be tough fights right now for Jacob Bank. If he comes through those, or some of those, that would give you the indication that he perhaps can beat someone like William Scull. Right now I don´t see anything telling me that Jacob bank will beat William Scull on Jan. 26. 

Prediction: I see William Scull controlling the pace of the fight early on with his elusive boxing ability and showing that he will dictate what takes place in the ring. He will land the more effective punches and evade Jacob Bank´s attempts. Bank is very durable and strong as it looks and I have not seen him tired in the ring so I think he will be there for the duration of the fight, trying to find something that isn´t there that night. Even Canelo had some difficulties with Scull´s movement and couldn´t contain him for any length of time to mount together a sustainable attack to really put a mark on Scull. What makes one think that Bank can perform better than Canelo did against Scull? Bank will have to go looking for Scull towards the 2^nd half of the fight when he finds himself down on the cards and that will give Scull even more countering oppurtunities. Perhaps Bank wins a few rounds maybe two or three and Scull sweeps the rest for a clear unanimous decision win something like a 117-111.