Peter Quillin vs. Jermain Taylor on Garcia-Judah undercard on 1/19

By Boxing News - 11/07/2012 - Comments

Image: Peter Quillin vs. Jermain Taylor on Garcia-Judah undercard on 1/19By Dan Ambrose: Steve Kim is reporting on his twitter page that Golden Boy is setting up a card on January 19th headlined by WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (25-0, 16 KO’s) defending his titles against 34-year-old Zab Judah (42-7, 29 KO’s) at the Barclays Center, Brooklyn, New York, USA. On the undercard will be former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (31-4-1, 19 KO’s) facing WBO middleweight champion Peter Quillin (28-0, 20 KO’s).

What’s so interesting about this card is that both fights involve past their prime fighters taking on guys – Garcia and Quillin – in the prime of their career. I’m not so excited about either fight, although I’m not surprised that the fights are being made because Golden Boy has a couple of vulnerable champions in Garcia and Quillin. They’ve got to match them carefully because if they put them in with the wrong opponent then neither of these fighters will be champions.

Quillin, 29, looked really vulnerable in beating World Boxing Organization 160 lb champion Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam by a 12 round unanimous decision last month. Quillin knocked N’Dam down six times but in between all the knockdowns, Quillin was getting out-boxed and out-worked by a very limited N’Dam.

The fight that boxing fans was hoping that Golden Boy would make was a unification bout between Quillin and WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. However, neither Quillin nor Golden Boy want to make that fight for some reason. Putting Quillin in with a past his prime Taylor would appear to be a case of Golden Boy keeping their champion safe, because if they put Quillin in with Golovkin that would be pretty much a guaranteed loss for Quillin. He doesn’t have the boxing skills to beat a fighter like Golovkin and it would be pretty ugly and one-sided if that fight were to be made.

Taylor, 34, has fought three times since making his comeback last year and has beaten the following fighters: Jessie Nicklow, Caleb Truax and Raul Munoz. Taylor hasn’t looked much different from the fighter that was knocked out by Carl Froch, Kelly Pavlik and Arthur Abraham. The only thing that’s changed is that he’s being matched up against weak opposition.

Taylor is ranked #8 by the WBO, and you could see this fight coming a mile away after Quillin struggled to beat N’Dam. I didn’t think for a second that Golden Boy would put Quillin in with someone relevant in the middleweight division like Martin Murray, and Dmitriy Pirog.

Look for Quillin to be matched against the mostly little known opposition that the WBO has ranked for as long as possible without facing dangerous guys like Golovkin or Pirog.

As for this fight, Quillin will beat Taylor if for no other reason that Taylor is way over the hill and will likely not be able to handle Quillin’s power shots.



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