Stevens is Ready To Face Quillin if No Golovkin Shot

By Keith Idec

Curtis Stevens would prefer challenging Gennady Golovkin on Nov. 2 in The Theater at Madison Square Garden.

If that middleweight title fight cannot be made, however, the heavy-handed, 160-pound contender wants to face Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin for the WBO middleweight title. Quillin likely will make his next title defense Oct. 26 at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, but he doesn’t have an opponent yet.

“He could get it, too,” Stevens told BoxingScene.com. “I’m not excluding anyone. I would take that WBO title from him.”

Stevens likes Quillin (29-0, 21 KOs), with whom he became acquainted when both boxers were highly touted prospects in New York. But Brooklyn’s Stevens (25-3, 18 KOs), who produced a fantastic first-round knockout against Mexican veteran Saul Roman (37-10, 31 KOs) on Saturday night in Uncasville, Conn., is certain he’d dethrone Quillin.

“He’s all right,” Stevens said. “He’s got a little power, too. But he’ll knock you down eight times and you’ll still get back up. These guys in the middleweight division that are knocking people out and people are embracing, we have to see how they’ll take a hit when they’re fighting someone that has power, real power.”

Stevens was referring to Quillin’s unanimous decision defeat of France’s Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam (27-1, 17 KOs), a fight in which Quillin scored six knockdowns yet couldn’t record a knockout Oct. 20 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

“The kid from France was dancing circles around his ass,” said Stevens, who’s promoted by Main Events. “If he didn’t get knocked down [six] times, he’d have won. He kept getting back up and fighting. He was just jumping in too much and ‘Kid Chocolate’ was catching him at the right times.”

The 30-year-old Quillin has made one defense of the WBO middleweight championship since winning it from N’Jikam, but Stevens wasn’t impressed by his seventh-round stoppage of Fernando Guerrero on April 27 at Barclays Center, either.

“Come on, man,” Stevens said regarding Guerrero (25-2, 19 KOs). “These guys are fighting blown-up junior middleweights.”

The 28-year-old Stevens is 3-0 in 2013, including two highlight-reel, first-round knockouts that were televised by NBC Sports Network.

More dedicated and determined to reach the potential he displayed as an amateur and early in his nine-year pro career, Stevens wants this impressive seventh-month stretch to lead to his first world title shot. While hopeful, Stevens just isn’t sure if he’ll land that opportunity in his next fight.

“I believe [Golovkin and Quillin] want to keep their titles,” Stevens said. “And I believe they want to get moved the right way, until the right time to fight a monster like myself. We’ll just have to wait and see how people want to go about it.”

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.