by Geoffrey Ciani (Exclusive Interview by Jenna J & Geoffrey Ciani) – This week’s 134th edition of On the Ropes Boxing Radio (brought to you by CWH Promotions) featured an exclusive interview with undefeated middleweight contender Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin (24-0, 18 KOs) who is scheduled to face Jason LeHoullier (21-5-1, 8 KOs) this Saturday night. Quillin spoke about his upcoming fight and also shared opinions on a variety of other topics, including Khan-Judah, Sergio Martinez, Andy Lee, Pacquiao-Marquez III, and more! Here is what Kid Chocolate had to say:
Regarding how he feels in preparations for his July 23 matchup against Jason LeHoullier:
“I’m feeling great, I’m feeling ready, I’m feeling fit, I feel like I smell good, and when I head out to leave the gym I’m going to still smell good!”
On what he expects from his opponent Jason LeHoullier:
“You know, what more can you say about him having the heart of a true fighter and stepping in there on only a week and a half notice to fight a top ten contender out there. I give a lot of credit to the guy and I’m not overlooking him. I want everybody to know that I’m taking this guy as seriously as I would take Tarvis Simms or any other opponent that was out there for me to fight. I’m just looking to go out there and perform at a high level.”
His views on what it will take to score a knockout victory against Jason LeHoullier:
“Sometimes that challenge is kind of hard because nobody just lets you knock them out. I’m going to just try my hardest to win and win in a big fashion and look spectacular. With that being said, I can only do so much with what Jason LeHoullier will allow me to do. So I’m just looking, like I said, to perform at a high level. If it’s beating him up for ten rounds, then I’m going to beat him up for ten rounds! If it’s stopping and getting him out of there then that will happen, I shouldn’t have to force that to come. It’s going to be automatic. Of course I was watching the fight with Chavez and he knocked him out, which was a huge knockout. That was a huge mistake he made, and he had to pay for it tremendously by getting knocked out in the first round. I have twenty-four fights and the majority of those fights, which I believe fifteen or sixteen fights ended in two rounds or less. So everybody knows I do have the knockout power to get him out of there. It’s just all about how the fight takes place and what direction it’s going to go in.”
His views on comments made by head trainer Freddie Roach that “Quillin is ready for Sergio Martinez right now”:
“Of course! He should. A hard-working trainer sees a hard-working fighter, and what do you think he’s going to say? I think so. I think I was ready for these big opportunities when I was calling out Paul Williams and Kelly Pavlik. But guess what? Nobody ever heard of that because I wasn’t in the place where I’m at right now. Now that I’m with a higher profile trainer, anything he says people are going to lash out right away. I work very hard. To be a six year pro, why else do people fight? If you are going to go out there and earn a living off of this you have to get the best and biggest opportunities out there and that’s what I shoot for. I’m not saying I don’t want to fight Sergio right now and that I need a few more fights. He’s considered the best out there. When Floyd Mayweather had only ten fights he called Oscar De La Hoya out. People were saying who does this guy think he is calling Oscar De La Hoya out. It’s a guy who shoots for the stars! It’s a guy that believes in himself that much that he believes he can fight guys like that. That’s what you have to do. As soon as you start putting doubts in your mind, that’s when you become a loser.
This guy Sergio has been sounding off on me and everything, and it’s been taking away from what’s important and what’s important is July 23. I have to fight and win this fight because you’re only as good as your last fight. So I have to be able to create a moment in this fight that people can remember and keep my name in the chitter-chatter. Hopefully in the future me and Sergio Martinez can tangle up if he’s not too old to do so. You don’t see a lot of the other promoters sounding off and coming to the defense of their fighters like Lou DiBella is as far as saying that he wants to fight Pacquiao. Pacquiao is a smaller guy! You’re calling out smaller guys than you. Fight some guys your own size! You want big opportunities? There are a lot of big opportunities out there. If you feel like you’re the best then go up to super middleweight if there are no fights at 160 pounds that you can fight. That’s the only chance of redeeming and showing that you’re the best fighter in the world. He’s fighting a guy who’s 23-0 with only 14 knockouts. That just shows you right there.
I don’t care who you beat in the past. Like I said you’re only as good as your last fight. You have to create great moments against great guys. That’s how you get included with the names of the greats like Sugar Ray Leonard and all of these other guys like that. Sometimes timing is not on everybody’s side in some cases. Maybe that’s what happened to Sergio is that timing hasn’t always been on his side. He hasn’t had the best of luck with fights, stepping up there with guys pulling out, and coming out and fighting Paul Williams. Why would Paul Williams and Sergio fight? Only because Paul beat him in a little bit of a controversial type of victory he pulled out. But Sergio had the belt so now he would be a more credible name to beat to get a belt. It’s gibberish how Jose Sulaiman will come out and defend Sergio Martinez. From what I believe he’s just the President of the WBC so why not just play both sides of the fence and stay even because you have to stay neutral. I have to honestly say that I want to become bigger than those belts. I want to become bigger than the boxing world will allow me to because that’s what’s going to keep my name out there, not the belts. That’s not what makes Kid Chocolate. What makes Kid Chocolate is that whenever they tell me that I have a challenge I want to step up and that’s what I want to do.
I’m sorry I’m talking out of so much frustration, but there is just a lot that’s built up since the last time we got to speak. Last time it was me and Andy Lee speaking out. When you call out a bigger name and they act like you never call out other names, it’s because people are not fans of boxing like they say they are. They don’t follow these websites like they say they do. It’s been on record that I called Andy Lee out. Have I not? And guess what! Emanuel Steward said that Andy Lee says I’m not in his plans! They are moving forward and want to go towards bigger opportunities. I can’t knock him for that. I was just speaking on my opinion that I would love to fight Andy Lee! Why not? You know what I’m saying. It would be great for boxing and that’s what it is, but people don’t catch on to that part. They catch on only when a guy will say I want to fight Sergio Martinez. The only reason why I would say that is I’m shooting to be the best. You always hear guys that say they want to become the middleweight champion and they want to become the richest boxer in the business. If I wasn’t in the gym working as hard as I do then guess what? Then I would be just like every other boxer who says I want this and I want that, and I don’t put in the work and the effort. I definitely do that part! I’m primed, I’m ready, and I’m more focused than I’ve ever been in my whole career! I’ve got experience, I became a seasoned pro, and I’m very strong. I’m glad that I work with the trainers I work with: Brad Bose, Michael Villa as well has been helping me out, Eric Brown, along with Freddie Roach you know what I’m saying. I’ve got a power squad that’s putting all their efforts into me because they believe in me. So why not sit at the table and break bread with each other, so that’s what we’re working towards.
If an opportunity with Sergio Martinez doesn’t come then other opportunities will. But right now it’s July 23 against Jason. Jason, I’m focused on you. If you come to do what I’m doing to you, then we’re going to put a very entertaining one on for the fans, and that’s all I ever ask is that a fighter will just come in and try to beat me and try to get me out of there. That way it helps me to be a better fighter and we put on a great show for boxing fans.”
His views on recent setbacks suffered by David Lemieux and Fernando Guerrero and whether he is at all worried he may suffer a similar setback should he take too big a step up in class too quickly:
“Well listen, like I said I’m a six year pro. David Lemieux was on a railroad car going 300 miles per hour. He was speaking very high on himself. I don’t know how hard he was working in the gym, but he’s been a pro not as long as I have. I had injuries and sat out but I’m still gaining the experiences being in the sport and having six years underneath my belt. This is a time when I fought Jesse Brinkley it was after he was a big challenger for Lucian Bute. He fought him. I was never a challenger for a belt, so he had everything riding and the momentum with him and everything like that. So a lot of people said this was the biggest fight of Peter’s career, and a lot of boxing insiders were like this is the biggest fight Peter ever had to date. Me going in there and stopping him in three rounds and hurting him in the first round closed a lot of miles right there.
But you know what? You cannot make everybody happy in boxing. There are always going to be doubters, there are always going to be negative energy, and there are always going to be people telling you that you cannot do it. My job is not to always prove those doubters wrong. My job is to just go out there and earn my living, be a happy boxer like I am, be serious about this sport, and go out there and create those opportunities for myself. I fight for my family, I fight for my friends that want to see me do well, and I fight for my pets that I have that I have to take care of. That’s what I fight for. I fight to be the best. I want to be cut from the same clothe. Now I may be speaking a little bit beyond my britches but when you read about Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Hagler—those are the guys that I look up to! Those are the guys that I want to be compared to because those guys they have a lot more riding for them in addition to being good fighters. They have countries backing them and they used to sell out arenas. That’s who I look up to when I think about all those doubters. I don’t think about what people say about me or what they write about me, because that’s not what drives me. If anything it makes me even more dangerous and stronger.”
On what he believes was the key improvement for him during his nice run these last three fights:
“Of course my work ethic, only because leading up to my fight with Fernando I had fourteen rounds of sparring for that whole camp. So I didn’t have enough sparring. It was really rough for me to get sparring. I was paying people. Now that I’m on the west coast I got all the sparring that I need. Freddie I need sparring, we’re fighting a lefty, and they get it right away. Eric Brown is working in the trenches with me, so every day I go to the gym. After I get out of this interview with you guys I’m heading straight to the gym and I’m putting in that hard work. I think for me that was the biggest difference in my game that I didn’t have before—having the sparring and all the other tools that you would need to prepare for fights.”
Regarding his decision to make the move out to the west coast:
“Well my manager sat down with me like this. He said I’m your manager. I turned a couple of opportunities down training with certain trainers and I was very unhappy. I was very stagnated in New York. I built up a lot of popularity but people want to see you do better. They don’t want to see you keep grinding to become a club fighter. That’s not what I believe I was. I wasn’t a club fighter. I did well in club fights, but I don’t want to be known as a club fighter. I want to be known as a potential superstar in the sport. I am a boxing standout. I stand out from all the rest, but I just needed a little bit more to further my game. When I came to the Wild Card, originally it was supposed to be that the trainer I was working with would work along, but he wasn’t really interested in that. So I had to do what I had to do for myself to further myself to get myself where I was going to be at. Then being with Cedric Kushner, he was a good guy. I’m not going to degrade him and say anything bad about him. I just needed bigger opportunities that at the time he wasn’t able to provide for me. So moving away from New York was going to get me away from a lot of the f*cking headaches that I had, which is having 100 people ask me when I was fighting again, or I’m fighting but the fight is canceled. I was getting tired of that. Moving there with Freddie, I had seen that it smelled like a gym. I didn’t feel comfortable being there because that isn’t what I was used to, but guess what? That’s what helped me become better and I like putting myself in those positions where I have to challenge myself to be able to be a guy to stand out from the rest.”
His views on the upcoming junior welterweight unification bout between Amir Khan and Zab Judah:
“Well you know you got an experienced lion versus a young lion. From the media they’re getting a lot of media attention for what Amir would like to accomplish in his game as far as what he is doing for boxing. Zab Judah of course, he’s got his point of view for what he wants for boxing. I think it’s more personal than anything. These guys want to prove where they really stand in boxing and I think that could be dangerous for the both of them. I’m kind of like 50-50 on the fight right now. I never count Zab out ever. Amir has yet to prove himself against top level opponents and having top level opponents on his resume. So it should be a good fight and I’ll tell you who wins when they get into the ring.”
His views on newly crowned WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Junior and whether he feels he earned his championship:
“Well Freddie said there were certain fighters that he would get a middleweight champion, and guess what? It happened for Julio Cesar Chavez. I have to honestly say with 40 fights, I don’t care if he fought bums the whole time. He fought some good opposition. If people don’t feel like he got better than I don’t know what they’re on because with 40 fights you should be able to get a little bit better. As far as what I think about him, I think he’s a good guy and I think he’s a champion. That’s what it is and that’s all I really can say, and the reason for that being that he works in the same stable with the same trainer. Freddie told me the same thing as far as getting me a strap. That’s yet to be seen so that’s why we’re working hard. Of course I can’t really say a lot about me wanting to fight Chavez Junior. Like I would tell you all any time I would fight anybody. I would fight my own mother if I have to. I just don’t want to cause a conflict of interest for anybody unless it came to the table with a lot of money and somebody couldn’t say no, and everybody could come to the table and agree upon something and then that’s what it would be. As far as right now, I’m just eyeing July 23 against Jason, create a moment, and hopefully move towards bigger opportunities. One more comment off that, let me remind you that Jose Sulaiman is the one right now in the middle of all that and he’s milking the gain for what it’s worth. There is no hate in that. Chavez is holding his belt. You know what I’m saying? Maybe they’re trying to set up a mega fight between Sergio and him. Who knows?”
On whether he believes Juan Manuel Marquez can be competitive in his upcoming third fight against Manny Pacquiao:
“Well at a higher weight or at the weight they’re fighting at I really can’t say. That’s the kind of fight that you really don’t know what could happen. I mean if we’re riding off of momentum and who’s been doing the better fighting I’m going to go with Pacquiao, of course. There is bad blood between them having two fights already and being close fights. It could be like that all over again, so that’s the reason we want to see this fight. We want to match the performances up. Floyd Mayweather beat Marquez, right? We want to match Manny Pacquiao’s performance against that, and hopefully they make the fight between Pac-Man and Floyd Mayweather. Where I stand on the fight, that’s what can happen but I’m going to ride with Pacquiao only because of his momentum and who he’s been fighting.”
On whether he believes a title fight is next in the event he beats Jason LeHoullier:
“I see that in the near future, yes. I see that in either my next fight or my next fight after that fight. I’m not sure, but I’m looking to stay busy so after this fight I’m looking to fight if all goes well before the end of the year.”
On whether he has any messages for all the Kid Chocolate fans and the listeners of “On the Ropes”:
“First of all I want to thank you guys, Geoff and Jenna, for just giving me a call and giving the latest and greatest to all my fans. One thing is that everybody who has been following is keeping me in a good area and a good situation with positive energy. I also always want to thank the people who send me negative comments, because sometimes those guys speak out of not knowing and it’s okay, because I’m going to teach them what the game is all really about. I want to thank them for sending me those negative letters because it strengthens my armor and it’s keeping me strong to go out there and perform well, and that’s all that counts at the end of the day. Thank you guys! I want to thank you with all my heart.”
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For those interested in listening to the Peter Quillin interview in its entirety, it begins approximately twenty-six minutes into the program.
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