All photos by Marilyn Paulino/RBRBoxing
Friendship took a backseat at an afternoon press conference at Planet Hollywood in New York’s Times Square today to announce the long awaited matchup between WBA Middleweight world champion Daniel “The Miracle Man” Jacobs (30-1, 27 KOs) and former world champion Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin (32-0-1, 23 KOs).
The two Brooklynites showed mutual respect for each other’s ability but also were adamant that the best man will prevail on December 5 when they square off against each other at Barclays Center where Jacobs will make his fifth appearance and Quillin his fourth. The bout will headline a card to be broadcast live on Showtime.
“Take all the friendship and throw it out the window,” said Lou Dibella who will promote the bout. “This will be nasty and brutal. The man who loses will take a giant step back. The man who wins will be a superstar.”
This will be Jacobs’ third defense of his share of the middleweight title and is coming off a second-round TKO victory over Sergio Mora in August when Mora hurt his leg and could not continue.
Quillin is coming off a brutal one-sided knockout win over Michael Zerafa last month, where Zerafa was carried out on a stretcher and taken by ambulance to a local hospital.
This middleweight title bout will cap of an exciting three months in the middleweight division starting with the October 17 matchup between Gennady Golovkin and David Lemieux and then the November 21 megafight between Miguel Cotto and Canelo Alvarez for Cotto’s WBC belt.
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Quillin said he is keeping an eye on those other fights and hopes to eventually one day land a date with one of them.
“Would I want to fight Gennady Golovkin and make all that money? Of course,” said Quillin. “But it has to make sense. The fighter’s job is to fight not to start picking to fight this one or that one.”
Quillin said the Jacobs fight was there for him a year ago, but he felt it wasn’t the right time.
“We were looking at David Lemiuex, but he wasn’t available so then Andy Lee came along and we felt if we would fight Danny later it would be bigger and now it is.”
Jacobs shared that in anticipation of the title defense against Quillin he’s actually started his camp earlier to get a full 10 weeks in.
“I have been calling Peter out for two years because this is the fight I need to get to the next stage,” said Jacobs. “I’ve been on a strict diet and I’m hungry. Hungry for Chocolates,” Jacobs said with a smile.
Jacobs then looked over at Quillin and said “Come December 5 I’ll be the cookie monster.”
