Tom Casino/Showtime[/caption]Peter Quillin, also known as "Kid Chocolate," won his first world title on Oct. 20 when he beat Hassan N'Dam of France by a unanimous 12-round decision at Brooklyn New York’s Barclays Center.
It was quite an eventful fight with the new WBO Middleweight Champion dropping the old champion six times to the canvas along the way. The unbeaten Quillin won by a score of 115-107 on all three of the judge’s scorecards.
Quillin had Brooklyn crowd firmly behind him as it was a homecoming of sorts for the 27 year old. He spent his early years in Grand Rapids, Michigan and then moved to Brooklyn for a few years before heading a few miles over to Manhattan.
He decked N’Dam twice in the fourth round and it appeared that he might be close to putting him away. He was hurting the ex-champ with most of his shots, but N’Dam survived. He actually hit the deck four times in the round, but two of them were ruled as slips by referee Eddie Claudio.
Quillin sent his opponent to the canvas twice more during the sixth round and the referee was keeping a close eye on the fallen fighter, but again, he managed to survive the round.
In fact, he didn’t just survive it; he started throwing back and landed some solid punches of his own. However, it was obvious at this point that he wasn’t going to win a decision and had six rounds left to knock Quillin out or lose his title.
The Cameroon-born boxer did his best and he won a few rounds in the middle of the bout and started to our on the pressure in the late rounds.
It was all a case of too-little too-late for N’Dam though and while he was going for a last-round knockout he left himself open and was dropped two more times by Quillin just before the final bell rang. Considering that N’Dam was sent to the canvas on six different occasions, the final scores of 115-107, showed that it was quite a close fight.
After the bout Quillin told the Brooklyn crowd that he loved them and also thanked his fans in Grand Rapids and Manhattan. N'Dam threw 279 power punches and landed 97 of them for a connect rate of 34.8 per cent while Quillin landed 102 out of 230 for 44.3 per cent.
N’Dam said it was the first time he had been knocked down in his pro career and he just couldn’t get his legs back. He admitted that Quillin caught him with some good shots and won rounds due to the knockdowns, even though he had been winning them.
The 29-year-old Quillin raised his record to 28-0 with 20 KOS while N'Dam lost for the first time and saw his record fall to 27-1, with 17 KOs. Quillin gave his 28-year-old opponent a lot of credit for traveling to Brooklyn for his first title defense and putting up such a tough fight.
There was reportedly a rematch clause in the contest and most boxing fans would be glad to see them go at it again.
