By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions has sent out a press release saying that WBO middleweight champion Peter Quillin (31-0, 22 KOs) will be vacating his WBO 160 pound title rather than taking on his dangerous IBF mandatory challenger Matt Korobov.
The move was kind of expected because Quillin had failed to sign his part of the contract for his title defense against Korokov, and Quillin had asked for two extensions to have time to sign the contract.
The final second extension expired today, and the World Boxing Organization wasn’t going to let Quillin have yet another extension in order to string this thing out further.
There’s rumors that Quillin has got a better off to fight WBA World middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs for his title than the $1.2 million that he was set to make for the Korobov fight. If that is indeed the case, Quillin must feel confident that he can beat Jacobs because if he loses the fight, Quillin will be a mere contender and his paydays will obviously decrease.
“I’d like to thank WBO president Paco Valcarcel and his organization for their support throughout the years,” said Quillin. “Winning the WBO world championship was a highlight in my career and something I’ll never forget, this is a difficult decision, but in order to make the fights the fans and I want against my fellow middleweights at the top of the division, I needed to relinquish the title. This is an exciting new chapter in my life, and I’m looking forward to cementing my spot as the best middleweight in the world.”
Korobov, a hard puncher with excellent technical skills and an extensive amateur career, figured to be a really tough fight for Quillin, and you can’t really fault Quillin for vacating the belt rather than fighting him. Jacobs would seem to be the easier mark because he’s pretty flawed and hasn’t had a lot of fights against top guys during his career. By Quillin opting to not fight Korobov, he probably saved himself from being knocked out by the hard hitting Russian fighter.
Korobov, #1 WBO, will now likely face #2 WBO Billy Joe Saunders for the vacant WBO middleweight title. It means that Korobov is going to need to wait a little while longer before he gets his shot at the WBO title. The Korobov-Quillin fight was supposed to take place on November 1st. It’s unclear how long it’ll take for Saunders to get ready to fight Korobov.
Quillin might be able to take advantage of Jacobs’ inexperience by taking the fight to him. If Quillin had fought Korobov there would have been an excellent chance of Quillin getting knocked out at some point. If he couldn’t hurt Korobov, Quillin would have been in deep, deep trouble in that fight.
Quillin captured the WBO middleweight title in beating Hassan N’Dam by a 12 round decision two years ago in 2012. Unfortunately, Quillin didn’t do much with his title. WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin was very interested in fighting him, but instead Quillin opted to take the safe fights against Fernando Guerrero, Gabriel Rosado, and Lukas Konecny. Quillin looked poor in the Rosado and Konecny fights.
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