By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach says he’s interested in putting his unbeaten super middleweight contender Peter Quillin (24-0, 18 KO’s) against former World Boxing Council (WBC) middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (47-2-2, 26 KO’s) if Martinez was willing to take the fight. Quillin, ranked #5 by the IBF in the super middleweight division, is a fighter that Roach has been training for a while and who sees as becoming a champion in the near future.

The 6’1″ Quillin certainly has the size and power to become one of the super middleweight title holders, but as far as beating Martinez, I wouldn’t give him any chances of doing that. Roach looks like he’s trying to get some easy popularity for a fighter that still hasn’t proven that he’s good enough to beat even the paper champion in his own division.

Quillin was staggered Dioniso Miranda in a 10 round decision in 2008. That fight caused Quillin’s stock to plummet in the eyes of many boxing fans at the time. Although fans have mostly forgotten how horrible Quillin looked in that fight because he’s beaten a handful of 2nd tier fighters since then, they saw again how ordinary Quillin is when he defeated fringe super middleweight contender Jesse Brinkley recently in April. The Brinkley fight highlighted the fact that Quillin has no inside game whatsoever and is more of a long distance pot shot fighter who lives and dies by his right hand. Quillin tees off with his right and it’s almost his only weapon.

In an interview at the Grand Rapids Press, Roach said “Everybody tells me how good Sergio Martinez is. I’d welcome that fight for Peter…Antonio Margarito knocked Martinez out [in 2000] and that was at 147 pounds. [Kermit] Cintron beat him, also [correction: Cintron and Martinez fought to a controversial 12 round draw].”

Cintron was lucky not to have been knocked out by Martinez in their fight. Martinez knocked him down with a crushing left to the head and Cintron complained to the referee that it was from a head butt. Had the referee had seen that it was from a left hand, he would have correctly ruled it as a knockout victory for Martinez instead of ruling it as a head butt.

Roach should be targeting super middleweights for Quillin instead of middleweights. Perhaps Roach is uncomfortable with Quillin’s chances against super middleweight champions Carl Froch, Andre Ward and Lucian Bute. I don’t give Quillin even a small chance of beating any of those guys. Even the WBO champion Robert Stieglitz, who a lot of boxing fans see a paper champion, would likely give Quillin a lot of problems.