“Fistic Avalanche at the Barclays Center”
BoxingGlove Notes
Distinio Lois, Jr.
If you blinked, went to the hot dog stand, or just arrived late for the main event you missed this boxing year’s most vicious and fastest knockout.
This much anticipated middleweight championship fight between 2 boyhood friends who sparred together, and were amateur Golden Gloves champs, and also live in the same borough of Brooklyn blocks from each other, gave the approximately 9,000 fans in attendance a candidate for knockout “round of the year”.
Danny “The Miracle Man” Jacobs, 31-1, 28 knockouts & undisputed W.B.A. Middleweight Champion successfully defended his crown against former W.B.O. Champ Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin, 33-1-1, 23 k.o.’s, in a vicious 1st round punishing knockout at 1:25 seconds of the round. The Barclays Center of Brooklyn was the scene of this event on Saturday, December 5, 2015.
This Jacobs victory left no question as to who was the better fighter after so much speculation as to who would win because of the similarity of both in all aspects of their boxing profession, plus heights and reach and their temperaments were also the same.
Jacobs was the underdog perhaps because of his sad history of spinal chord cancer diagnosed as Osteosarcoma that threatened his life as well as his boxing career.
Quillin, had fought more experienced fighters and had won a world title on the way to this all Brooklyn match-up. The long press conferences, and public workouts served to build up the momentum of this match between these 2 fighters not only because this was a championship fight, but it was also for the bragging rights of “Boxing King of Brooklyn”.
It became very difficult for anyone to make a choice of who would win this fight except personal friends and family, so the majority played it safe and called it a “pic-em” fight.
It was really a wait and see what happens, after the first bell, which very often would be a 1st round feel-out test of skills.
We didn’t have to wait very long, because Danny Jacobs went after Quillin throwing out a slow distracting jab and then hit him with a hard right hand punch that Quillin did not see but it hurt him.
As Kid Chocolate Quillin staggered back, Jacobs furiously rushed forward and attacked him reigning punches upon punches from all angles as the shocked crowd roared.
A very hurt and also confused Quillin but a warrior, bravely tried to fight back instead of holding on leaving himself defenseless from Jacobs’ hard, speedy, destructive combination of punches.
The final hard punch was a right hand to Quillin’s left temple which rendered him senseless and rubbery legged on the ring ropes. As referee Harvey Dock approached helpless Quillin to start the mandatory 8 count he suddenly waved the fight over creating an avalanche of boos from the crowd who had anticipated a phone booth war between these 2 talented fighters.
Peter Quillin was really hurt, not knowing where he was as he was led to his corner by the referee.
In the other corner there was jubilation, and hugs & kisses from anyone involved in Jacobs’ victory especially his long time trainer, Andre Rozier.
After the fight, true brothers in combat, Jacobs and Quillin hugged, wished each other well as both were heard to sincerely say to each other, “I love you brother”.
At the post fight ring interview, Danny Jacobs stated that “this is the nature of this brutal business, sometimes you have to fight your friends to move up. I knew that once I had him hurt, I would move in to finish the job.”
In that short fight Jacobs actually threw 53 punches in 85 seconds 27 of which connected while Quillin was only able to throw 16 punches, missing with 10.
Jacobs also said that now he would not rule out any other opponents, like 3G Golovkin, or W.B.O. 160 pound champ Andy Lee, newly crowned W.B.C. & Ring Magazine Middleweight Champion, Saul “El Canelo” Alvarez, and even Miguel Cotto, the former champ. “If Kid Chocolate Quillin wants a rematch I’ll accommodate him also, but now I want to move forward”.
Quillin did briefly stated, that he could’ve continued but he would not dispute the referee’s stoppage “because he was looking out for my safety. I’ll just go back to my family and assess what went wrong, correct my mistakes and move forward to try to win another world title, I like being a champion.”
Although many questioned referee Harvey Dock’s abrupt stoppage of the fight, not giving Quillin a standing 8 count as required, because this was a world title fight, Dock stated that Quillin was “helpless on the ropes and glassy-eyed. The fighter’s safety and health prevails, so I stopped it.”
The fight result, to me at least, was more a sad human interest story that included the brutal sport of boxing as a worldwide entertainment delight and that obligated close friends who grew up almost like brothers to batter one another for a “prize”.
This fight should have reminded us of the multiple times that sister world champions of tennis, Venus & Serena played against each other in the finals after eliminating the competition. Fortunately, they don’t have to hit each other they just swat a ball back and forth with a tennis racket.
The only time that I thought biological brothers would have to fight in the ring was when the Klitschko Brothers, Vitali & Wladimir at one time owned all of the heavyweight titles.
Despite the demands of some blood thirsty fans it never happened, and it will never happen because Vitali has since retired and moved into the political ring wars, and Wladimir recently lost all of his titles in a wrestling- type title defense to an octopus type of fighter, Tyson Fury.
EDITORIAL COMMENT:
It has been an established fact that the more successful you are in Amateur boxing, such as International Competition which sometimes leads to an Olympic representation of your Country, you are expected to be successful in the professional ranks leading to winning a world title.
Such was the case with Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Oscar De La Hoya, Gennady “3G” Golovkin, and Miguel Cotto, ex-Olympians who won world titles.
A classic modern day example is champ Danny Jacobs who while not an Olympian, was an outstanding United States National Champion, Junior Olympics Champ, a 4 times New York Daily News Golden Gloves Champ in the middleweight division, with a record of 137 victories with only 7 defeats. This experience minus an Olympic berth still prepared Jacobs to win a world professional title.
There are exceptions to this rule such a Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin, who only had 15 amateur fights and won only 1 Golden Gloves title.
His natural talent prevailed and when he turned pro his Cuban born father gave him the name of “Kid Chocolate”, a name made famous by a great Cuban fighter of the past, Eligio Sardinas Montalvo-Kid Chocolate-Super Featherweight Champ from Havana, Cuba.
Lou DiBella, president of DiBella Entertainment who promotes Danny Jacobs, stated, “Its Jacobs’ time, since he has overcome cancer over 2 years ago, and was nicked-name, ‘The Miracle Man’. Jacobs is stronger than ever and will challenge all of the top middleweight opponents, and I am very sure he’ll defeat them all and will be the Top Gun of the middleweight ranks for a very long time.”
My Black Star News readers, I agree, Danny Jacobs is a man on mission, and he will succeed. What do you think?
