By Dan Ambrose: Former WBO middleweight champion Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin (32-0-1, 23 KOs) says he’s open to facing unbeaten IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) in a fight, but he wants to be well-paid for him to agree to the fight.
Quillin says he’s absolutely unafraid of fighting Golovkin because he’s already sparred with him before, and he’s willing to battle him. However, for that fight to take place, Quillin says it’s going to cost to get him agree to taking the fight. Just how much money it’s going to cost to lure Quillin into accepting the fight is unknown.
If Quillin is talking a tremendous amount of money than that’s probably not realistic, because Golovkin isn’t even making big money yet. For his recent fight against former IBF 160lb champion David Lemieux last October, Golovkin only got a guaranteed $2 million. The fight was on HBO pay-per-view, and it’s said to have brought in only 150,000 buys.
Quillin is probably not even as popular as Lemieux, so it’s doubtful that a fight between him and Golovkin could even be made for PPV. It would probably have to be on regular HBO, and that might not bring Quillin the kind of money that he’d want to take a risky fight against Golovkin. But it would be a fight where Quillin’s popularity would be increased win or lose.
If Quillin were to beat Golovkin, then he would be a much bigger star, so the risk would be worth it for him to take the fight. Right now, Quillin seems to be stuck as far as him increasing his popularity. He’s not really becoming more popular with his fights against Andy Lee, Michael Zerafa and Lukas Konecny.
Tonight, Quillin will be fighting WBA “regular” middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs (30-1, 27 KOs) on Showtime Championship Boxing from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Since Jacobs isn’t a popular fighter either, beating him probably won’t do much in terms of increasing Quillin’s star power in the sport.
Quillin will just be seen as a paper champion at best, which is kind of how Quillin was seen last year before he vacated his WBO middleweight title after being put in the position where he would have had to make a tough title defense against Matt Korobov.
“I can say one thing about Gennady Golovkin, he’s a good fighter, but those types of fights come at a cost, and come at a price,” Quillin said to Michelle Phelps. “When it happens, it happens. I’m not running scared from him. I get so frustrated hearing guys say I’m scared. Bro, have you ever had a gun pointed at you? That’s something to be real scared of. I’ve had that happen to me where I felt my life was on the line. So why would fighting another man and getting a check scare me for? I’m not worried about fighting Gennady Golovkin. When it comes time to fight him, give me what I want. That’s all,” Quillin said.
Some boxing fans think Quillin is unrealistic in his wish to get a big payday against Golovkin, because they don’t see him being a big enough name to get a tremendous payday against Golovkin. For Quillin to get a big payday, he’s going to need to fight WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, and I don’t think that fights going to happen. It’s doubtful that Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya is going to want to match Canelo against Quillin, who is managed by Al Haymon. I could be wrong about that, but I think that could be the deal stopper.
Quillin needs to beat Jacobs tonight somehow, so that he can win his WBA middleweight title. It’s unknown if Quillin really cares to hold onto that title, because if he does keep it, he’ll need to almost immediately face the winner of the Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan vs. Chris Eubank Jr. fight. Quillin might not want that heavy responsibility of having to face tough fighters over and over again. With the way things are now, Quillin can be matched up strategically against guys like Zerafa and Jacobs without having to take risky fights where he has a real chance of losing. The Jacobs fight isn’t as risky because Jacobs has been shown to have a chin problem during his career, and he’ll likely fold in the first two rounds of Quillin comes out swinging tonight.
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