LONDON (23 Oct) – Peter ‘Kid Chocolate’ Quillin has hit back at ‘King’ Gabriel Rosado vowing to knock him out before conquering middleweight marvel Sergio Martinez. The undefeated WBO middleweight world champion faces the hardened Philadelphian Rosado on the undercard of the Bernard Hopkins-Karo Murat clash this weekend at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.
Fireworks are expected when the pair enter the ring, with Rosado earlier promising to make an early night of it, something which hasn’t sat too well with the current champion.
“He says the fight is going to a knockout and he’s not going to the scorecard. I really, honestly, see that, but I don’t believe it’s going to be me that’s going to be the one that’s taking defeat, knocked out,” insisted Quillin.
“I just know that I’ve been training very, very hard for this fight. I know what I’m able to do. I’m not comparing my performance to anybody. I’m not trying to match my performance.
“I’m going to do “Kid Chocolate” that’s all I know how to do, and with my last three fights people count for that too but they don’t count the last three where it’s been 11 knock downs.
“Everyone I touch they have a different approach, and once I touch them it’s not the same, and I’m praying for Gabe that’s he’s able to go up there and put his best foot forward because that’s all he can do, and when that’s not enough he’s just going to have to shake hands and going to have to accept defeat because that’s what I’m going to deliver,” said Quillin.
Raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the city of the legendary Floyd Mayweather, Quillin captured the WBO middleweight world title after a scintillating 12-round performance against Hassan N’Dam, which saw the French-Cameroonian hit the deck six times.
Long thought of as one of boxing’s glamour divisions, Quillin is out to restore the sparkle of past middleweight eras by insisting he wants to face the best out there should he get past Rosado, starting with the man he regards as the best in the division – Martinez.
“I would place myself second behind Sergio Martinez. I’ve been calling Sergio Martinez out from day one when everybody didn’t think I was a serious fighter,” he said.
“I would place myself number two only because I was willing to fight all the guys that Gennady Golovkin is fighting, Matthew Macklin. I was willing to fight Gennady Golovkin, but a lot of things and a lot of business hold back a lot of these things.
“I just know that I’m going to fight hard whatever place I am to be number one, be the number one middleweight in the United States and be number one middleweight in the world,” said Quillin.
“It’s one of my dreams, to be a unified champion, and I reconstructed my goals after I won the title to say that that’s the next mission that there’d be a unified champion,” he said.
Watch Hopkins v Murat and Quillin v Rosado live and exclusive on BoxNation (Sky Ch.437/Virgin Ch.546) this Sunday at 2am. Visit www.boxnation.com to subscribe.