By Dan Ambrose: WBO middleweight champion Peter Quillin (31-0, 22 KO’s) says he’d be interested in facing once beaten #3 WBC, #5 IBF, #5 WBO, #6 WBA Daniel Jacobs (27-1, 24 KO’s) for the right about of money. If Quillin doesn’t get the right price, he’ll face whoever his manager Al Haymon picks out for him. Quillin hasn’t had a good opponent yet in his three title defenses, and it would be an upgrade if Jacobs were to be Quillin’s next opponent, even though Jacobs was already exposed in a loss to Dmitry Pirog.
“I just take ’em as they come along,” Quillin said. “At one point I thought I was fighting Danny Jacobs in my last fight. If that’s the only big fight out there for me, we’ll fight as long as the price is right.”
It’s difficult to picture Showtime offering a lot of money for a fight between Quillin and Jacobs because this is star far from being a big fight for Quillin. Jacobs is a good fighter, but he hasn’t faced a quality guy since he was easily beaten by Pirog in 2010. But with that being said, it wouldn’t be surprising if Jacobs were to beat Quillin if the fight could be made because Quillin has looked very mediocre as a champion in his wins over Lukas Konecny, Gabriel Rosado, and Fernando Guerrero. Quillin has not looked like a good champion. In fact, he’s looked by far to be the weakest of the four middleweight champions, and light years away from Gennady Golovkin, who is considered to be the best fighter in the 160lb division.
Boxing fans booed Quillin’s recent performance against Konecny last month, as he treated Konecny like he was the second coming of Julian Jackson, and he looked timid much of the time. While Quillin did show good power, he was still easy to hit, had zero inside game, and just looked like he didn’t have a clue in the ring.
“Fighters and fans can get drunk with power,” Quillin said. “They want you to blast out your opponent. I haven’t gotten credit as a pure boxer because I’ve been so dominant taking out guys but I can box, too. I said before that fight that I was going to be a ‘finesser,’ making the fight look easy and showing that my boxing skills are at the highest level. I did just that against a guy who had 50 wins and was the European champion.”
It seems like Quillin is making an excuse for looking terrible against Konecny, doesn’t it? Quillin looked like he couldn’t open up the way he wanted to because he kept getting nailed by Konecny, so he played it safe and cruised to a less than impressive decision.
At this point a fight between Jacobs and Quillin should be seen as a 50-50 fight, because neither of these guys are at the same level as the other top fighters in the division, and anything can happen in this fight.
Comments are closed.