Long before he was "The Miracle Man" at Matchroom, Daniel Jacobs was Golden Boy’s Golden Child.

An east coast protégé with a wealth of amateur expertise, Jacobs was boxing’s Jesus Shuttlesworth as he mulled multiple offers in his Brooklyn base. Oscar De La Hoya, the face of Golden Boy Promotions, had a soft spot for the fight game’s lucrative Hispanic market, an area that had served him well as a fighter, but even Oscar couldn’t resist Jacobs. The New Yorker, after months of angling for the right deal, finally got the proposition he wanted and his professional career was up and running.

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Although being schmoozed by the fistic reputation of De La Hoya and the articulate charm of Richard Schaefer, then De La Hoya’s partner at Golden Boy, Jacobs quickly realized that he wasn’t the only new face on the thriving company’s roster. Making his debut on the grand Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Ricky Hatton show in December 2007, Jacobs was regarded as a certain star from day one and appearances on stellar shows quickly became the norm until 2010 swung into town and demonstrated to Jacobs that despite being lured to California, boxing could be as cold as a New York winter.

His position in Golden Boy’s pecking order when identifying blue-chip prospects waned when Mexican darling, Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, was unveiled as a marquee signing for the Los Angeles franchise. Developed largely in his homeland since making his debut as an enthusiastic 15-year-old, Alvarez was afforded the treatment that accompanied Julio Cesar Chavez, Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales on their way to superstardom on American soil.

De La Hoya admired Alvarez like he was Kevin Spacey fawning over Mena Suvari in a bathtub full of roses, but for Jacobs, seemingly shunned by his promoter in favor of a prettier model, his career was about to get a whole lot worse. Opposing heavy-handed Russian, Dmitry Pirog, for a portion of the middleweight title, Jacobs, hampered by personal circumstances related to the passing of his grandmother, was bulldozed by Pirog in the summer of 2010.

With his career potentially in tatters due to the nature of the defeat, Jacobs, who was promised the world by Golden Boy just years earlier, was back at square one. Question marks were attached to his durability and his promoters had new priorities — the biggest being the advancement of Alvarez.

Feasting on a steady diet of veterans and B-level Europeans, Alvarez eased through the likes of Carlos Baldomir, Matthew Hatton and Shane Mosley with relative ease. Set to be the face of boxing as soon as Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao departed, Canelo did everything asked of him, but when numbers for Showtime’s ridiculous deal with Mayweather didn’t materialize following “Money’s” clash with Robert Guerrero, Alvarez was handed an amazing opportunity in 2013.

It was a chance he failed to seize as he was systematically befuddled by Mayweather, who handed the raw youngster his maiden loss. Despite the one-sidedness of the bout, Canelo learned several lessons from it and it remains his only defeat to date.

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For Jacobs, his road to redemption featured numerous obstacles. Ridiculed by many following the Pirog setback, Jacobs’s return was a slow one that occurred away from the spotlight as an undercard dweller. A move to Al Haymon combined with a battle with cancer gave Jacobs fresh hope that his career could still be rescued, and this was evident in his performances as he based his career back in New York.

With Brooklyn’s Barclays Center now a staple of East Coast boxing, Jacobs reeled off a series of wins there, and none were more impressive than his one-round blowout over the highly-dangerous, Peter Quillin. After years of trying to convince people he was a world-class talent, Jacobs was now considered one of the world’s best middleweights. In 2017, he was handed the chance to prove it.

With the threat of Kazakh monster, Gennady Golovkin, loitering in the opposite corner inside Madison Square Garden, Jacobs eliminated constant reminders of the Pirog setback by meeting Golovkin head on and earning his respect. After enduring an early knockdown, Jacobs rallied brilliantly to push “GGG” all the way to the final bell where the ring announcer read out three scorecards that didn’t favor the Brooklynite.

In stepped Canelo, like it was 2010 all over again, to demonstrate to Jacobs how defeating Golovkin should look. After a controversial draw in September 2017, Alvarez finally got the job done in a rematch a year later to prove beyond doubt that he’s the world’s best middleweight, a notion Jacobs disagrees with.

For so long, Jacobs has been accustomed to acquiring territorial rights without ever ruling the world, but on May 4th, he finally has the chance to take what he believes has long been his.

The favorite child of Golden Boy Promotions until Alvarez entered the family, Jacobs was evicted from the birth home of his career and forced to forge an identity all on his own.

A thorn in his side for a number of years now, Jacobs isn’t just interested in becoming the unified ruler at 160 pounds, as this rivalry goes much deeper.

And on Saturday night, Jacobs can prove so many people, today and in the past, wrong.