Quillin-Zerafa & Bundrage-Charlo make weight

By Boxing News - 09/12/2015 - Comments

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By Allan Fox: Former WBO middleweight champion Peter Quillin (31-0-1, 22 KOs) made the 163 pound catch-weight quite comfortably last Friday in coming in at 160lbs for his 10 round fight at super middleweight against Michael Zerafa (17-1, 9 KOs) on Saturday night on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC from the Foxwoods Resort, in Mashantucket, Connecticut.

The catch-weight was something that was put in the contract because it wasn’t clear if the 32-year-old Quillin would be able to make the 160lb weight limit, as he failed to make weight for his last fight in April against WBO middleweight champion Andy Lee.

Quillin was not only on weight for the 163lb catch-weight, but he also would have made weight if the fight had been at middleweight instead of at super middleweight. This is good news for Quillin, because it means that he’ll likely be able to make the middleweight limit for his title shot this December against WBA “regular” middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs.

Quillin needs to make weight for that fight for him to have a chance at winning Jacobs’ WBA title. The last thing that Quillin needs is to miss weight once again, and have no chance of winning the WBA title. Quillin needs to try and remain at middleweight for as long as possible, because he’ll find things a lot tougher at super middleweight if he’s forced to move up to that weight class.

For his part, the 23-year-old Zerafa weighed in at 162 pounds, and looked good.

In the most interesting fight on the card, IBF junior middleweight champion Cornelius Bundrage (34-5, 19 KOs) weighed in at 153 pounds for his title defense against undefeated #1 IBF Jermall Charlo (21-0, 16 KOs). Charlo, 25, also came in at 153. This is a fight with two big punchers facing each other.

The 6’0” Charlo will have a big height advantage of six inches over the 5’6” Bundrage. However, Charlo will only enjoy a one and a half reach advantage. Besides Charlo’s height advantage, he’s also the much younger fighter than the 42-year-old Bundrage by 17 years.

Whether Charlo’s youth and size advantage will be enough to get the win remains to be seen. Charlo has excellent power, but he doesn’t have much in the same of experience against quality opponents. He’s going to be taking a big step up in class in taking on Bundrage.

Before this fight, Charlo’s best opponents have been the likes of Michael Finney, Norberto Gonzalez, Antwone Smith and Lenny Bottai. Bundrage is considerably better than those fighters.

Undefeated #12 WBA light heavyweight contender Marcus Browne (15-0, 11 KOs) weighed in at 175 pounds for his 10 round contest against 36-year-old former WBA light heavyweight champion Gabriel Campillo (25-7-1, 12 KOs). Campillo weighed in at 179lbs. Campillo was stopped in the 4th round by unbeaten light heavyweight contender Artur Beterbiev last April.

In August of last year, Campillo had a big upset win over contender Thomas Williams Jr. in beating him by an impressive 5th round stoppage. Campillo showed that he had too much experience for Williams Jr. in that fight. Browne, 24, and his handlers have to hope that they don’t face a similar fate as Williams Jr.

Browne was a member of the U.S 2012 Olympic team. He looks good as a pro, but he’s going to need to increase his punching power to have a chance at beating guys like Sergey Kovalev, Beterbiev, Andrzej Fonfara, Sullivan Barrera, Eleider Alvarez, Jean Pascal, Edwin Rodriguez and Yunieski Gonzalez. Right now those fighters look a lot better than Browne.

Other weights on the card:

Hugo Centeno Jr 161 vs. Lukasz Maciec 159
Gary Stark Jr 124 vs. Anthony Napunyi 124
Titus Williams 126 vs. Benjamin Burgos 124
Antonio Russell 119 vs. Manuel Rubalcava 120
Bryant Cruz 133 vs. Jonathan Perez 132
Shelly Vincent 124 vs. Brittany Cruz 122



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