By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Daniel Jacobs is prepared to get booed in his hometown.

The Brooklyn native knows that even though he’ll fight in his hometown Saturday night, Gennady Golovkin also has established a large, loyal fan base in New York. The Kazakh knockout artist has fought twice apiece at Madison Square Garden’s main arena and The Theater at Madison Square Garden during his rise to stardom.

Golovkin’s last fight at the Garden – an eighth-round stoppage of Montreal’s David Lemieux – drew a capacity crowd of 20,548 in October 2015. Thus Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) expects the Madison Square Garden crowd to be split when he challenges Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) for the IBF, WBA and WBC middleweight titles.

“I think it’s gonna be fairly mixed,” Jacobs said. “You can’t deny that Gennady has a good fan base. But at the same time, I just think that as long as my people are gonna be here and I can hear people in the crowd – whether there’s more of my fans or more of his fans, it doesn’t matter. They’re supporting boxing. And if I’m getting booed, it’s gonna add more fuel. And if I’m supported, it’s gonna add more fuel. So it doesn’t matter for me. I’m a professional.”

The 30-year-old Jacobs won four New York Golden Gloves titles at The Theater and fought three times in the main arena as a professional prior to becoming the face of the Barclays Center’s Brooklyn Boxing brand. The WBA world middleweight title-holder has fought five times at Barclays Center since October 2012, including his career-defining, first-round stoppage of Peter Quillin in December 2015.

“I won my four Golden Gloves championships here,” Jacobs said. “Just walking through here and remembering all the memories I’ve created in this building, this will always be my home, too. I’m a Barclays representative, but at the end of the day I’m a New York guy. So this is my state, this is my city and I look forward to keeping that title.”

Golovkin joked that while Brooklyn belongs to Jacobs, Manhattan is his turf now.

“It’s very interesting,” Golovkin said. “Daniel, he’s the president of Brooklyn. I’m the president of Manhattan. Madison is my place. For Daniel, I think it’s Barclays. I don’t know. I think it’s a good gift, good present for people. Right now there’s more interest, not like last time, with David Lemieux, because he’s from Canada. Canada is Canada. Daniel is from Brooklyn.”

Tom Loeffler – managing director for K2 Promotions, which represents Golovkin – expects another sellout Saturday night. Ticket prices for the card headlined by Golovkin-Jacobs are higher than for the Golovkin-Lemieux card, which likely explains why the card hasn’t sold out yet.

Nevertheless, Loeffler has sensed a Golovkin fight against a well-liked New Yorker who has survived cancer has generated more interest than the Golovkin-Lemieux matchup.

“There’s definitely a bigger buzz on this fight here,” Loeffler said, “because Daniel is local, from New York, because of his fan base, not only locally here, but he also has a lot more exposure than what David Lemieux had when Gennady fought the unification fight with him. So we definitely see it. Ticket sales are pacing above the David Lemieux fight, and that completely sold out, so we have high expectations for the success of the promotion.”

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