Middleweight contender Danny Jacobs spoke of the need to face WBA/IBF/WBC champion Gennady Golovkin “for my legacy” and of having the skills necessary to topple the knockout artist, boasting, “We have everything to beat GGG.”

Jacobs, the WBA’s “regular” middleweight champion, thinks his skills match up well with Golovkin. “I know what I possess,” Jacobs told RingTV.com. “We have everything to beat GGG. We’re well equipped to be faster. We’re well equipped to be stand our ground and put power behind our shots. He’s not the only one with a high knockout ratio. My whole thing is when the opportunity comes, they’re going to see why I feel like I am the best middleweight in the world. But I know I have to go through that process of being the man before I call myself the man.”

Jacobs (31-1, 28 knockouts) called Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) “the pinnacle of the division” and wants to win another title to enhance the matchup before they meet in a unification fight. “It’s the most competitive fight,” Jacobs said Saturday before a press conference to announce Jacobs as the new face of the “Brooklyn Boxing” lifestyle brand at Barclays Center. “I would like to fight GGG, but I just want people to understand my perspective and respect it and not look at it like, ‘Oh, he’s just trying to avoid GGG’ and stuff like that. No, I want to fight him. This is something for my legacy. I can’t retire and not say I fought the best in my generation – at least try.”

Jacobs referenced his December fight with Peter Quillin and how Jacobs waited more than a year to make the fight, during which time his purse ballooned from a proposed $250,000 to more than a cool million. “I’m not going to fight a guy like GGG and make the same amount of money for fighting a Peter Quillin,” Jacobs said. “It doesnt make sense. Yeah, GGG is on the list but it’s all about doing it when it makes sense,” Jacobs went on. “I’m not going to have people force me — meaning those Twitter thugs or anybody else force me to fight somebody when I can make so much more (money). So am I wrong to want these things to get as much as I can possible from a fight that is at the top notch level? Hate me if you want but that’s what it is.”

Jacobs is finalizing a deal for a rematch with Sergio Mora on either Sept. 9 or Sept. 16 with venues in New York and Las Vegas being explored. Jacobs hasn’t fought since he demolished Quillin in just 85 seconds last December. His first choice of opponents was to face WBO middleweight titleholder Billy Joe Saunders and then to pivot off that match to an eventual fight with Golovkin down the road.

Showtime boxing chief Stephen Espinoza said he tried to broker a match between Jacobs and Saunders for the summer, but it was evident to Espinoza during negotiations that Saunders had no interest in such a fight. “If I can have another title in my possession and beat a top guy like Billy Joe Saunders,” Jacobs said, “then everything will be worth so much more with a guy like GGG.”

Jacobs could be Golovkin’s mandatory if the WBA orders the fight to happen. Saunders has mocked Jacobs on social media for not having a real title and being a paper champion.

“He’s supposed to say that,” Jacobs said of Saunders. “But my thing is this, it’s almost impossible not to consider me a key player or a top guy in the division. So even the public puts me above B.J. Saunders, so it’s not like he can say anything about me and it bothers me.”

The first time he and Mora fought last August, the two traded knockdowns in the first round before the fight was stopped in the second round after Mora could not continue because of an injured ankle, giving Jacobs a TKO victory. Jacobs doesn’t really see the point of the rematch but he wants to stay busy and it’s a fight that can easily be made.

“I wouldn’t look at it as unfinished business,” Jacobs said. “That’s how it will probably be promoted. But it was a punch that put him down. It was a series of punches that put him down.”

Jacobs won’t need any motivation for the fight. Mora has posted a picture of his knockdown of Jacobs as his Twitter backdrop and has needled Jacobs on social media of the punch.

“Over the past couple months, I’ve grown a dislike for Sergio because of his rants online,” Jacobs said. “When I seen him posting a lot of things online, I’m like, ‘Yeah, I don’t like this guy.’ The urge to want to hurt this guy is going to be my motivation.”

Mitch Abramson is a former reporter for the New York Daily News and can be reached on Twitter at: @Mabramson13.