By Jason Kim: Undefeated middleweight puncher Peter Quillin (26-0, 20 KO’s) has a major test on his hands against 40-year-old Ronald “Winky” Wright (51-5-1, 25 KO’s) on May 26th in a still to be determined venue. This fight was talked about for the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Miguel Cotto undercard. However, it wasn’t able to be put together for the cards unfortunately.
Quillin, 28, should be able to get past Wright, as he hasn’t even won a fight in six years since beating Ike Quartey in December 2006. However, Wright is such a good fighter and his jab is so good that he really doesn’t need much more than his jab to defeat an incomplete fighter like Quillin. Freddie Roach, the trainer for Quillin, hasn’t done enough to fix Quillin’s game to where you can say he can beat the top fighters in the middleweight division or even get past an old rusty warrior like Wright.
Quillin’s problem is he’s a pot shot fighter that loads up with everything he throws. He doesn’t throw a lot of punches, doesn’t use his left hand much and when he does he has no power; Quillin also can’t jab very well, has no inside game and is easy to hit. He’s incredibly flawed and not ready to take on the champions in the middleweight division in my estimation, even an average champion like Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. or Daniel Geale.
Quillin has better power than Wright, but what good will his power if he can’t throw enough of his shots to make them felt. If Quillin is eating jabs all night long, he’s going to be in a world of hurt because he doesn’t have a jab to beat Wright in a jabbing war. Quillin can’t rush Wright and take him out like he’s been taking out the 2nd tier fodder that Quillin has been continuously been out in with, because Wright has excellent defensive skills and is really hard to hit due to his ability to block punches.
Once he discovers that he can’t hurt Wright or get through his defense, it’s going to be a long night for Quillin just as it was for another slugger Felix Trinidad, who tried to slug it out with Wright in 2005 and ended up eating jab after jab en route to losing by a lopsided 12 round decision. Instead of putting Quillin in with a complete fighter like Wright, Roach needed to dig up a decent fringe contender that could give Quillin some rounds and show him some things that he could possibly learn from.
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