By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – It was difficult for Daniel Jacobs to watch Curtis Stevens suffer a brutal knockout defeat to David Lemieux on Saturday night.

Stevens and Jacobs have been friends for many years, since the Brooklyn natives were up-and-coming amateur boxers. Jacobs’ girlfriend and the mother of his son, Natalie Stevens, also is Stevens’ cousin, which made watching Lemieux knock Stevens stiff in the third round an even more emotional moment.

“My heart hurts,” Jacobs said Monday at Madison Square Garden, before a press conference to promote his middleweight title fight against Gennady Golovkin on Saturday night. “Just to see anybody that you know, especially that you grew up with, have a relationship with, it’s devastating. Very rarely do you see that side of boxing. Normally guys lose by knockout, but not that type of a knockout. So it was devastating to see that.”

It was particularly tough for Jacobs to witness Stevens’ devastating defeat in the company of some of Stevens’ family members.

“His cousin is my girlfriend for 12 years,” Jacobs said. “And his uncle and all of us were at the house, watching the fight. And just to see everybody’s reaction, it was a bad feeling.”

The WBA world middleweight title-holder hasn’t reached out to Stevens yet because he wants to give the middleweight contender some space and because Jacobs is focused on final preparations for the biggest fight of his career. Despite seeing Stevens get knocked unconscious, Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) won’t allow even the thought of suffering a loss like that to Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) to enter his mind, even though Golovkin is a dangerous puncher and dominated Lemieux.

“Absolutely not,” Jacobs said. “I’m a different fighter. Styles make fights. And I’m confident in my ability, so I don’t think like that.”

Golovkin-Jacobs will headline a four-fight HBO Pay-Per-View telecast at the Garden on Saturday night (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT; $64.95 in HD).

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