By Keith Idec

Eddie Hearn hopes Billy Joe Saunders defeats David Lemieux on December 16.

Despite his contentious relationship with Frank Warren, Saunders’ promoter, Hearn knows Saunders would welcome a trip to Brooklyn to battle Daniel Jacobs, as long as the money is right. If Lemieux wins, Hearn suspects it’ll be more difficult to get him to fight Jacobs next.

That’s because Hearn, Jacobs’ promoter, expects Golden Boy Promotions to save Lemieux (38-3, 33 KOs) for the winner of the Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin rematch if Montreal’s Lemieux beats England’s Saunders (25-0, 12 KOs) to win the WBO middleweight championship next month in Laval, Quebec. Oscar De La Hoya’s promotional company represents Alvarez and Lemieux.

Regardless, Hearn has already told Tom Loeffler, Golovkin’s promoter, that Jacobs (33-2, 29 KOs) is ready to fight Golovkin again if Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) can’t get an immediate rematch against Alvarez. Jacobs lost a close unanimous decision and snapped Golovkin’s 23-fight knockout streak March 18 at Madison Square Garden.

In Golovkin’s next fight, the Kazakh knockout artist settled for a 12-round draw with Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) on September 16 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

“I think the winner of that [Saunders-Lemieux] fight against Danny Jacobs is a natural fight as well,” Hearn said during the most recent episode of CompuBox TV’s “Inside Boxing Live” podcast. “Our concern is if Lemieux wins, they’ll try and hold him up for the winner of Canelo and Golovkin. But I said to Tom Loeffler the other day, ‘Listen, if Canelo-Golovkin doesn’t happen, we’re ready to go with Jacobs-Triple-G 2.’

“So again, we wanna be in control of our own destiny. We not really waiting on anyone. We wanna get our date, know that Danny Jacobs can have four, five weeks off with his family, enjoy his Christmas and get straight back into camp. I think that’s important for any fighter, to have a strategy and a plan and a schedule, rather than just waiting for a call that might take three or four months to come. That’s very disheartening to be so inactive, and the plan with Danny Jacobs is to be as busy as possible.”

Jacobs beat Milwaukee’s Luis Arias (18-1, 9 KOs) by unanimous decision in their 12-rounder Saturday night at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York. Unless he can get Golovkin in the ring again, Hearn expects Jacobs to return on an undisclosed April date at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.

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