(Photo: Esther Lin) By Dan Ambrose: Unbeaten middleweight contender Peter Quillin (26-0, 20 KO’s) will finally get the chance to prove himself against a decent opponent after taking it easy for the past seven years against mostly lesser opposition and not really ever being tested.
Tonight, the soon to be 29-year-old Quillin, #5 WBA, #7 WBO, will be facing the ring rusty 40-year-old Ronald “Winky” Wright (51-5-1, 25 KO’s) in a 10 round bout at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California. Quillin, a highly hyped Freddie Roach project, will have to put up or shut up. He’s either going to show the talent to beat an incredibly rusty Wright or he’s going to be exposed as pot shot fighter without an inside game, defense, jab, or an ability to throw combinations.
Quillin was almost knocked out against the only puncher he’s faced in his 7 year career in Disoniso Miranda in June 2008. Miranda has Quillin staggering badly in that fight, and it turned off a lot of fans towards Quillin. However, Quillin has been kept away from sluggers since that fight and he’s done well against the light punchers that he’s faced.
Wright isn’t a big puncher by any stretch of the imagination, but he can punch hard enough to KO Quillin if he lands cleanly enough times. But what Wright can do is jab Quillin into submission, because Quillin is a lot like a much less talented version of Felix Trinidad when you take away Trinidad’s combination punching, his jab and his ability to fight inside.
Wright lost his last fight against Paul Williams in April 2009, but there’s no shame in losing to Williams because he threw a lot of punches in that fight. Williams ended up throwing over 1000 punches. Quillin will be lucky if he can break 400. He simply doesn’t put his punches together and is like middleweight version of David Haye with his low punch output. Wright does good against those types of opponents. But what isn’t clear is whether Wright will be able to fight hard enough for 10 rounds to control the fight. With all the time off that Wright has had, it’s going to be tough for him to be able to fight hard enough to get a decision.