"I'm maintaining my weight. I try not to reach over 180 pounds. I'm actually on a special little diet right now to try to stay around 170. If I can do that without a fight lined up, that would be a blessingÂ…I got some things coming up. I got a little script to read for a movie. I got a little part, so I'm doing that right now and then I'll get back in the ring, if not December, then January for sure and we look to stay busy in 2015; at least 3 to 4 fights next year," stated undefeated former middleweight champion Peter Quillin, who talked about his future plans and much more. Check it out!
PC: Kid Chocolate, how is everything going my man?
PQ: Everything has been blessed, man. I'm just taking it one day at a time.
PC: I have seen you at some events. You follow the sport of boxing closely. What are your thoughts on the state of the game and some of the fights you have been seeing?
PQ: Ah man, it's a lot of excitement around the sport of boxing. It's a beautiful thing to be a part of such great moments as a fan and also as a performer.
PC: You haven't fought since April, but from your social media postings and pictures, you are in the gym staying ready. Is that the mindset, just staying ready for whenever the call comes?
PQ: Oh yeah, of course. I had to reset my goals and everything, having a kid, and had to reset my whole mentality and being ready is just part of one of the things I came up doing; being disciplined and prepared. I worked out today and everything and I'm just trying to get better in life, man.
PC: Are you trying to stay close to middleweight or just working out to keep the tools sharp and not worrying so much about your weight for now?
PQ: Of course I'm maintaining my weight. I try not to reach over 180 pounds. I'm actually on a special little diet right now to try to stay around 170. If I can do that without a fight lined up, that would be a blessing.
PC: Are you not fighting by choice right now or do your handlers have you out until something big comes up?
PQ: I got some things coming up. I got a little script to read for a movie. I got a little part, so I'm doing that right now and then I'll get back in the ring, if not December, then January for sure and we look to stay busy in 2015; at least 3 to 4 fights next year.
PC: Jermain Taylor recently grabbed a middleweight strap. Everyone counted him out. You gotta love to see a great comeback story and a guy persevere through being counted out.
PQ: I take that as a great moment in his life and I pray for the best for him. Seeing that happen to him gives me some type of inspiration that it can happen to me as well.
PC: Gennady Golovkin is a name you hear a lot, I'm sure. He recently stopped Marco Antonio Rubio. What were your thoughts on his performance?
PQ: He did exactly what I thought he was gonna do, which was get another knockout, you know. Rubio, not to take away from his performance or the person or boxer that he is, but he's had that done to him before, so I already knew the winner of that fight because of what has been done to him and what Golovkin has been doing to people. Rubio hasn't had the chance to be able to become a world champion. I think for the most part, it's really about Gennady Golovkin and it being his time.
PC: Do you feel sometimes that everything Gennady does is overblown or do you feel it's warranted because he's looking so spectacular doing it?
PQ: He gave a breath of fresh air for people that like to see him. He is a brutal fighter and he is very grimy. They talk to me about him online and the things they like about him. He is a very gritty and rough kind of guy, the way Gennady Golovkin fights, and you can only expect that they love to see the gore in that.
PC: But you have had some brutal knockouts too.
PQ: You know, I guess... I really can't even answer that. We've seen it with the best of them. We seen it with Muhammad Ali and now we seeing it with Floyd, and not to be pulling the racist card or nothing, but some certain fighters, like Cubans, don't get a lot of notoriety even though they are great fighters. It's sad to see it that way, but that's just the way it is. That's just a part of my life and I just gotta do my part to change the part of the world that I want to change, which is my friends, my family, and my fans who look to me for some type of support and inspiration, and that's really where my focus is. I don't really get into the glitz and the glamor of it, you know what I'm saying. A lot of things fade away and I think having a conversation with my kid in the next 20 years, it's very important for me to do that. I look to aspire people. I'm not trying to convince anyone to buy the type of Rolex that I have or get the best sneakers. I'm just saying, if you really want it and you truly believe in something, you will fight very, very hard like I fought. I fight very hard for a lot of strong reasons. I don't fight because I want some new cars and I think that's what makes Gennady Golovkin such a dangerous opponent. Where he is fighting from, he's decorated as an amateur and at this point, this guy wants to be the best in the world and that's dangerous within itself because he's fighting from a point of view to where he's going to give it his all and I'm the same kind of way. I come from nothing. I'm on a mission and it's about learning who I am as a fighter and as a person and a human being and what I'm trying to do to change the world and that's what's important to me. All that other stuff don't really even matter.
PC: Do you feel like physically you are preserved because you didn't have an extensive amateur career? You have layoffs and it never seems to bother you. I never hear you saying like, "I'm training hard and really need a fight." Seems like your body holds up well when you take time off and mentally, it doesn't bother you either.
PQ: A lot of people fight for money, man. They fight for money because they don't do the right things with their money. If you out there doing the wrong thing, you're gonna have to fight all the time. It takes you doing the right things with your money and I'm trying to put my money up to make sure that my kid won't have to struggle when they come up. I'm always gonna weigh my options out and make sure that I'm doing the right things with my money. Luckily, my wife has a good job and all the pressure isn't on me. I got a wife that makes good money and I'm moving in a whole different kind of world right now. Being married to a successful woman makes me limitless with limitations. That's why I work out every day. Today I did a 40-minute run. I split it between the treadmill, stair climber, bike and elliptical doing 10 minutes all the way around and it's like who is the person that's in my ear saying, "You gotta work out." It seems like at this point in my life, I just say what I want and people support that shit. I can get somebody to come down there and work me out or just go down there by my motherfucking self and zone out and think about where my life is going to go for the next 5 years.
PC: We are many moons away from this, but would you encourage your son to be a fighter?
PQ: I'm just going to encourage my son to be great at what he do. What's the effort in that? The effort in that mean he gotta show up. The hardest part is just showing up. You show up and then you gotta know what you're gonna do when you're there, so you put a plan together. Then when you get that plan together right, you work endless hours to perfect it with repetition and practice and that's how you get better. So you are supposed to be self-improving yourself mentally and the way to do that is to work out and you can build a strong mental. And I believe in God and that goes with that as well. Believing in a spiritual light where God has made it where we can work hard where we can deserve certain things that we can be blessed with. From that blessing, we can learn about who we are and what we are thankful for. Even if you don't have... I think if I didn't have these things, I'd find a way to make a way out of no way. That's how I always been.
PC: You are now at the weight class where Bernard Hopkins reigned supreme at for years. To see him fight a fighter like Sergey Kovalev just months before his 50th birthday means what to Kid Chocolate?
PQ: It means that he's great and he's inspirational and you don't see a guy like him in no other sport in the world. I been in there with Kovalev as a sparring partner where Gennady Golovkin trains with Abel [Sanchez]. He helped me get ready for a fight and he definitely can crack. And not to say that I was dropped or anything, but he's definitely fighting from his own end of the struggle and this is the honest reason why fights are being made because guys want to be great. Bernard Hopkins has built such an extensive resume and record who wouldn't want to see him have success, but I'm only watching from a fan standpoint. I wish the champ many more birthdays to come after this one.
PC: I wish you the best of luck. It's always a pleasure speaking to you because you carry a lot of knowledge. Is there anything else you want to say before I let you go?
PQ: When a lot of opportunities start happening for somebody and they get these opportunities and they start thinking they can go away from boxing, I want to remind my fans that I'm not going away from shit. Boxing is my life. It's the trunk of everything and it's the reason why I'm the person that I am today. I work endless hours in trying to prepare myself to be the best in the world. I remind my shit of this every day, bruh, I have to. What I read about myself...I built up this real solid shield to know that this is the way it's supposed to be. People try to persecute me from my own dreams and my own beliefs and nobody never told me to go out there and work for it. I did it myself and when I was coming up, nobody never told me how to do it, but now everybody trying to tell me how to do it. But I just wanna remind people that the only thing they gotta do is sit back and watch this show and you're gonna enjoy this show. I see dudes that say, "I wanna see him knocked out. He can't fight." That same person's kid gets to meet me and he comes and says, "Dad, you need to follow this Kid Chocolate dude. He is a boxer and he was really cool." You gotta deal with your son coming home saying he looks up to me and he loves me because I'm a good example for him. I wanna see how those people react when that time comes.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]