WBA regular middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs said he is ready to face IBF, IBO, and WBA super middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, but only if the right amount of money is involved.
Jacobs has issued a challenge to the big names in the middleweight class after his remarkable first round stoppage win over Peter Quillin on Sunday at the Barclays Center in New York.
According to Tim Fletcher of Boxing News 24, Jacobs mentioned the likes of Andy Lee, Billy Joe Saunders, Miguel Cotto, and Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, but missed out on Golovkin's name.
Fletcher noted that the possible reason why Jacobs is bypassing one of boxing's rising star is because of Golovkin's low pay-per-view numbers in his recent fight against David Lemieux.
Fletcher wrote: "You can't blame Jacobs for not mentioning Golovkin's name among the bunch, because he doesn't bring the same kind of money that guys like Canelo and Cotto can bring to the table."
Golovkin's October bout against Lemieux only generated 150,000 PPV buys. It was dwarfed by the Cotto-Canelo PPV numbers of 900,000.
The money talk is certainly a factor for Jacobs, but he insisted that he is not afraid to fight the undefeated Kazakh in the boxing ring.
"[Golovkin] is not someone who I fear," Jacobs told Boxing Scene.
"Obviously, when you're dealing with a sport like this you wanna make sure you have the finances where it needs to be, in order for it to be such a big fight. I'm just making sure that I get in there and get compensated correctly."
Fighting Golovkin now may not give Jacobs a huge payday, but it would certainly boost his credibility as one of the best boxers in the middleweight division.
Furthermore, Golovkin would be Jacobs stepping stone to landing fights against top PPV earners.