By Dan Ambrose: In a make of break fight for both fighters tonight, unbeaten middleweight contender Peter Quillin 25-0, 19 KO’s) fights Craig McEwan (19-1, 10 KO’s) on the undercard of the Alfredo Angulo vs. James Kirkland fight at the Centro de Cancun in Cancun, Mexico. Quillin, ranked #7 by the WBA, needs this fight to keep moving forward for a hoped for title shot in 2012.

Quillin, 28, is at the perfect age for a title shot and can’t afford to waste anymore time in his career. He’s done the right thing in moving down from the super middleweight division, where Quillin had little chance of ever winning a title and has picked out the weak middleweight division to try and capture a title belt. However, McEwan, a southpaw, is plenty tough and can punch a little as we saw in his war with Andy Lee in his last fight in March 2011.

McEwan was stopped n the 10th round in that fight, but he was giving Lee all he could handle for the first seven rounds before running out of gas. If McEwan can fight the same way he did in that fight but keep his stamina together, he could pull off an upset. Quillin fights mostly with his right hand and if you can nullify that weapon, he’s basically a very average fighter.

Quillin’s left hand is weak by comparison to his right, and nowhere near as powerful as Andy Lee’s left which gave McEwan problems. But where McEwan can really take advantage of Quillin is on the inside. Quillin has no power on the inside and can’t get leverage on his shots when his opponents are in close. At 6’1″, Quillin is really a light heavyweight who has melted himself down to middleweight in order to find a niche. He’s badly flawed and his huge size makes him vulnerable when opponents get in close. He’s not one of those rare fighters that can punch well on the inside and the outside. Quillin is strictly an outside puncher, and we saw how badly he struggled in his fight Jesse Brinkley last April each time Brinkley took the fight to the inside.

The bad news for McEwan is that he’s not much of an inside fighter and will probably try and stay at a distance. McEwan, 6’1″, is just as tall as Quillin, to be sure. However, he’s not as quick as him and he won’t last long getting hit with Quillin’s favorite weapon, the lead right hand. To take that weapon away from Quillin, you have to get inside and work him over to the body and the head. You also need to speak to the referee ahead of time to make sure he watches for rabbit punches from Quillin in close. You can’t have Quillin drilling McEwan with short rabbit shots in close all night long. But the best place for McEwan to win this fight is on the inside. He’s got to stay in close as much as possible and not give Quillin any punching room for his right hand. You can almost ignore Quillin’s left altogether because he has no power at all with his left. It’s only his right hand that’s dangerous and he loves to go right happy. He’ll throw nothing else all night long if you let him.