Daniel “Cookie Monster” Jacobs has declared that as the actual Brooklyn-born fighter, he will have his hand raised after crossing paths with Brooklyn’s “adopted” son Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin this Saturday at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
The Cookie Monster moniker came from Jacobs during an early press conference after the fight’s announcement. He kept his traditional stance as a non— braggadocious gentleman, but he poked at Quillin’s nickname “Kid Chocolate”.
“I’ve been on a strict diet, I haven’t been eating chocolate,” Jacobs said as a closing statement. “But after December 5th, I’m going to be the Cookie Monster, don’t miss it.”
Quillin (32-0-1, 23 KO’s) has played his part as Kid Chocolate to the extreme and recently passed out chocolate candy to the crowd after his five-round destruction of Michael Zerafa in September. Quillin is a Cuban-American who was born in Chicago but made Brooklyn his hometown throughout his career. Now, their fight is being dubbed as the battle for Brooklyn and both men have stated that the fight means more to them because of it.
“In New York City you never get to see two guys at this level of boxing square off against one another,” Quillin said, “It means a lot and I’m very excited about this fight.”
Some of Quillin’s biggest fights have been hosted at the Barclays Center, his most recent one being against WBO title holder Andy Lee. The two fought to a twelve round draw that saw both men hit the mat, but the knockdowns were the highlight of a relatively slow scrap.
Jacobs (30-1, 27 KO’s) recently fought at the Barclays against Sergio Mora in August and both men were dropped in that fight as well, however, that fight ended in a second-round TKO for Jacobs. While Quillin was unable to put away Lee despite an early two-knockdown lead, Jacobs has been riding a ten-fight TKO streak since losing himself by fifth round stoppage in his fight with Dmitry Pirog in 2010. He bounced back against a few fighters who “weren’t even household names in their own households,” as Bert Sugar would have put it, and even claimed a secondary middleweight title during that run.
Jacobs, like Quillin, said he was excited for the fight and both men pointed out weaknesses they saw in each other.
“Peter’s flaws are that he loads up his shots too much, is slow on his feet and isn’t headstrong,” Jacobs said. “If I can execute the game plan I think it will be a phenomenal outcome.”
Quillin said he expected Danny to bring his “great” chin to the fight to the fight, which may be a knock on the fact Jacobs was TKO’d and has fought relatively soft punchers since his rebound. Then, Quillin added a quick jab about the size of Jacobs’ chin.
“I didn’t notice it before, but his chin looks very huge, so that’s what we’re looking at now,” Quillin said.
Both men are positive and all-around polite outside of the ring so those two statements from them are essentially shots fired. Quillin himself even called this fight a “good guy vs good guy fight” and Jacobs said that although Quillin has flaws, he has the experience and power to remain a dangerous opponent throughout the fight.
In all fairness, this fight has been met with mixed opinions. Some fans would have preferred this fight to have happened sooner, some believe this is an intriguing fight now and others reject the fight entirely. But this fight is between the two biggest names that the Premier Boxing Champions have in the middleweight division and although it might be for bragging rights in Brooklyn, it is also for dominance in the PBC’s middleweight realm as well and will affect who’s on top of the middleweight ranks; has been is thinning out as the months go by.
Quillin himself envisions a hot, bloody scrap for one of the PBC’s closing events of the year.
“You’re going to see Fourth of July in the month of December,” Quillin said. “We’re going to melt some snow.”
