by David P. Greisman

Daniel Jacobs will be stepping up in competition when he faces Peter Quillin in a battle of Brooklyn middleweights fittingly taking place at Barclays Center on a Dec. 5 card airing on Showtime.

Sometimes a step up in competition means what we’ve seen from a boxer before won’t work as well against a higher class of opponent. But Jacobs believes this step up will actually allow him to show more than what he’s been able to in the past.

“I know he’s a very dangerous guy. I know he has the power. But at the end of the day, skills are gonna pay the bills,” Jacobs said on a Nov. 12 media conference call. “You’re going to see a little bit more of my arsenal come fight night as opposed to what you’ve been seeing in the past. Yeah, I got a lot of knockouts. And yeah, I put a lot of guys down. My record will scream to you that I’m a knockout artist. But what a lot of people don’t understand is it’s a lot of skills behind that. I’m looking forward to displaying everything in my arsenal come fight night.”

Jacobs once was a touted middleweight prospect, but a fight for a vacant world title ended with him suffering a crushing knockout loss to Dmitry Pirog in 2010. Soon came a cancer diagnosis that threatened his life, and even if he survived there was a strong chance his career would be over. He lived, recovered and returned in 2012, rattling off eight wins since then. His last victory came in August against Sergio Mora, moving his record to 30-1 with 27 KOs.

Quillin won a middleweight world title in 2012 and made three defenses before vacating the belt in 2014 instead of facing Matt Korobov. This year he’s fought to a draw with Andy Lee and then overwhelmed Michael Zerafa, moving to 32-0-1 with 23 KOs.

Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide . Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com