Peter Quillin to face Fernando Guerrero on February 9th in New York

By ESB - 12/18/2012 - Comments

By Jeff Sorby: In making his first defense of his WBO middleweight title Peter Quillin (28-0, 20 KO’s) will take a relatively safe pick in Fernando Guerrero (25-1, 19 KO’s) on February 9th on HBO at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn New York.

The Quillin-Guerrero fight will be packaged with WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia’s fight against Zab Judah. Quillin-Guerrero will be the perfect fight to go along with that fight because both bouts are almost certain to end in knockouts. Judah is old, and he’s ripe for another knockout loss, and Guerrero has already been knocked out against Grady Brewer. It’s a perfect card thus far.

Quillin, 29, picked up the World Boxing Organization title off of Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam last October in a 12 round unanimous decision in a fight that N’Dam visited the canvas six times. Quillin’s power punching was superb in that fight, but his defense was pretty horrible.

N’Dam was able to hit Quillin with anything he wanted in the fight and he was getting the better of him whenever he wasn’t getting knocked down. Quillin’s power really bailed him out in that fight because if you take away the six knockdowns, N’Dam was the better fighter.

Guerrero probably won’t be able to out-box Quillin the way that N’Dam did because he doesn’t have N’Dam’s hand speed or his foot speed either. Guerrero’s only chance of winning is by beating Quillin at his own game by getting to his chin and knocking him out.

Guerrero has good power, but it’s not as good as his resume would have you believe. All of Guerrero’s knockouts have come against weak opposition, and we really don’t know if he’s got the power to beat a first tier fighter like Quiilin. Whatever the case, Guerrero is going to need to try really hard because he won’t last long against Quillin if he doesn’t get to him early.

If 40-year-old Grady Brewer was able to stop Guerrero in the 4th round, then you can bet a younger, stronger Quillin will do it even quicker.