Peter Quillin talks of ring return

By Boxing News - 06/07/2016 - Comments

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By Jeff Aranow: Former WBO middleweight champion Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin (32-1-1, 23 KOs) will be turning 33-years-old this month, and he’s dropping some big hints about making a ring return. Quillin believes the boxing public when they see him. It’s unknown why the fans will be excited because there wasn’t much to be excited about Quillin’s last performance against WBA World middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs last December.

Quillin was knocked out in the 1st round by Jacobs, and he fortune the referee stopped the fight when he did. Jacobs was unloading on a near defenseless Quillin at the time referee Harvey Dock stepped in and saved Quillin from potentially getting seriously hurt.

Quillin has been out of the ring for the past seven months since the defeat, and it’s unclear whether he’ll be fighting at all in 2016. If Quillin is going to fight this year, then his manager Al Haymon will need to find him someone soon. You’ve to figure it’ll take two months for Quillin to prepare for the fight.

“A lot of people are going to be excited to see it, because of what happened in my last fight,” said Quillin to Fighthype.com. “We’re going to come back strong. We have a new situation. I hope you’re all excited when you see it unfold. I’ve been shocking people in boxing since I turned pro,” said Quillin.

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It’s highly unlikely that Haymon will match Quillin against anyone good in his next fight due to the way he was hurt by Jacobs. However, Haymon can’t keep Quillin facing weak opposition because he’s only fought two high caliber opponent during his entire 11-year pro career in Jacobs and Andy Lee. The rest of the fighters that Quillin has fought have flawed and/or old. The best opposition has faced thus far are these fighters: Jacobs, Lee, Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam, Gabriel Rosado, Fernando Guerrero, and Winky Wright. Before you get too excited about Wright being on Quillin’s list of past opponents, Wright was 41-years-old, hadn’t fought in three years, and had lost his last two fights. Yes, Quillin beat Wright, but he didn’t beat a prime Wright.

Quillin needs to start facing better opposition because he’s had it too easy in his career. You can argue the only reason Quillin was unbeaten going into the Jacobs fight is because he hadn’t been fighting really good opposition during his career. If Quillin had been fighting the likes of Gennady Golovkin, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Jermain Taylor [back in 2005-2008], and Kelly Pavlik, he probably would have lost.

For boxing fans to be excited about seeing Quillin’s next fight, it’s going to take a high caliber opponent for that to happen. Fans probably aren’t going to be too excited at seeing Quillin go backwards to fight the over-matched fighters that have virtually no chance of beating him like Michael Zerafa, Lukas Konecny, Fernando Guerrero, and Craig McEwan.

If Quillin wants a good payday, then Haymon can likely match him back up against Jacobs. I don’t think it would be a good idea for Quillin’s career unless he’s cashing out because I think Jacobs is too strong for him. But if Quillin wants to make money for one fight, then Jacobs is the way to go. It’s probable that Haymon will put Quillin back on a soft diet of beatable fighters and aim him towards WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders.

That’s a fight Quillin would have a chance of winning if he can get the fight. Quillin could move up in weight to 168. At 5’11”, Quillin has the size to fight at super middleweight. He fought in that division earlier in his career by moving down in weight. I don’t see any opportunities for Quillin at middleweight at the present time with Gennady Golovkin holding most of the belts.

Unless Haymon wants to keep matching Quillin against Jacobs or unless he can setup a fight against Canelo, I think it would be better for Quillin to move up to 168 and see if he can reinvent himself in that weight class. The fighters are a little slower than the middleweights, so it’s possible Quillin will be able to track their punches better. Andy Lee and Jacobs were both able to hit Quillin repeatedly with their best shots without Quillin getting out of the way of them.