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Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin (32-1-1, 23 KOs) is finally ready to get back into action as he’ll be moving up the the super middleweight division — well, technically this next fight will have a 170lb weight limit — where he’ll take on an opponent to be determined on September 8, as confirmed by ESPN.
Quillin has been out of action since getting knocked out by Danny Jacobs on just one round back in December 2015 and we haven’t heard a peep from him since.
"People think I'm retired," Quillin told ESPN on Wednesday night. "I would have announced if I was retired. But I've gone through a lot. I changed my team. I have some new people in my circle. I needed to make sure I had the time I needed with them. But now I am ready to go and ready to start the second leg of my career."
Perhaps the biggest change Quillin has made was parting ways with his trainer Eric Brown over a year ago to begin working with Virgil Hunter across the country in San Francisco’s Bay Area. Hunter, who most famously trains Andre Ward, has taken on a few other ‘name’ fighters such as Amir Khan and Andre Berto in recent years. And he’s even offered to train Sergey Kovalev following his second loss to Ward this year.
"I don't want to be disrespectful to anyone I've worked with before, but being with Virgil, I find he explains things a lot more than I ever had. He's psychologically preparing me. I got a little too comfortable in training. Now I understand it's my job and my lifestyle."
Quillin won’t exactly be getting the star treatment in his return, though. He’ll actually be making an appearance on the non-televised portion of a Showtime card headlined by David Benavidez vs. Ronald Gavril, which will be for the vacant WBC super middleweight world title.
That’s a bit of a role reversal for Quillin, who used to employ Benavidez as one of his main sparring partners. Now he’ll be fighting on that man’s undercard, which goes to show just how much things can change in a couple short years. Quillin refers to the turn of the tables as a “humbling” experience.
Quillin now hopes that a move up in weight will help rejuvenate his career, mentioning that he’s been fighting at middleweight since he was 18 years old and it was becoming too much of a chore to make 160 in recent fights. He says his body was really suffering to squeeze down to the weight but now feels he’s in a good place with an eye on super middleweight.