Daniel Jacobs’ apathetic performance against Gabe Rosado late in 2020 drew intense criticism from fans and media.

They didn’t just question whether Jacobs deserved the split-decision win over Rosado that’ll forever remain on their records. They doubted Jacobs’ desire to remain a professional prizefighter because the former 160-pound champion has made so much money in recent years, particularly for his most noteworthy bouts – 12-round, unanimous-decision defeats to Gennadiy Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez.

That skepticism from fans and media, as well as his own displeasure with how he fought Rosado in November 2020, motivated Jacobs throughout his recently completed training camp on Long Island.

John Ryder, his opponent Saturday night in London, feels that the loser of their 12-round WBA super middleweight elimination match is “done,” for all intents and purposes. Jacobs believes he has plenty of championship-caliber boxing left in his 35-year-old body.

“He can speak for his self on that one,” Jacobs stated during a press conference Thursday in London. “The loser is not done over here. I’m a [decorated] fighter. One bad performance doesn’t define my career. So, this whole notion of, you know, my whole career is done if I don’t win this fight – I get that, the importance of this fight, which is to put us back into title contention. But my career is far from over. I have a lot more that I wanna continue [to do] and to accomplish.

“I wanna be able to have that Hall-of-Fame talk, as me and my trainer [Andre Rozier] always talked about since we first [laced up] a pair of gloves, in our first professional fight. And so, for me, this is more motivation to know that people think this way. And it’s so cruel and harsh to fighters with one bad loss. And that’s more motivation to me to go inside that ring and to put it all on the line, because I understand the importance of this fight, and to put me back into the position which I wanna create history.”

Jacobs (37-3, 30 KOs) and Ryder (30-5, 17 KOs), a southpaw from London, will square off in a main event DAZN will stream live from Alexandra Palace, a sports and entertainment venue better known among Brits as “Ally Pally.” DAZN’s coverage of the Jacobs-Ryder card is set to start at 7 p.m. GMT and 2 p.m. ET.

Brooklyn’s Jacobs will end a 14-month layoff on Saturday night. The former IBF and WBA world middleweight champion recorded a controversial split-decision victory over Philadelphia’s Rosado (26-14-1, 15 KOs, 1 NC) in their 12-round super middleweight match, which took place in November 2020 at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida.

Jacobs beat a game Rosado on two scorecards (115-113, 115-113, 113-115), but the official result is considered controversial.

Ryder, 33, has won both of his bouts since he surprisingly pushed former WBA super middleweight champion Callum Smith in a November 2019 fight at Echo Arena in Smith’s hometown of Liverpool, England. Ryder requested a rematch, but Canelo Alvarez (57-1-2, 39 KOs) beat Smith (28-1, 20 KOs) by unanimous decision to win that WBA belt a year later at Alamodome in San Antonio.

Ryder stopped Slovakia’s Jozef Jurko (8-4, 6 KOs) in the fifth round of his most recent fight, which occurred September 10 in Klagenfurt, Austria.

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