By Jake Donovan

Peter ‘Kid Chocolate’ Quillin is a middleweight star in the making. The rising contender has a dream team in place – Golden Boy Promotions and advisor Al Haymon making the fights happen and Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach working with head trainer Eric Brown in training camp – to go along with the talent and his easy-going personality.

Signs of his potential came in last year’s drubbing of Craig McEwan, which aired live on HBO. Quillin was dominant but was denied a spectacular finish when the bout was prematurely stopped towards the end of the sixth round.

Despite the anticlimactic ending, enough evidence was provided to indicate a true threat to the top middleweights was upon us. It’s traditional for such a breakout performance to be followed up against a name opponent, which leads to Quillin’s middleweight showdown with Winky Wright.

The bout takes place on June 2 at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California. It was originally targeted for May 5, as a supporting bout on the pay-per-view event headlined by Floyd Mayweather’s points win over Miguel Cotto. Instead, the financial parties involved decided to move to a different date, which lead to the bout being part of a Showtime-televised quadruple header.

The expectation is for Quillin (26-0, 20KO) to win and look spectacular against the 40-year old Wright, who hasn’t fought in over three years and hasn’t registered a win since Dec. ’06. It’s easy for a young fighter like Quillin, 28, to start believing his own press clipping. The New Yorker knows better than to take any fighter for granted, least of all a future Hall-of-Fame candidate.

“I will just try to be as sharp as I can on June 2,” Quillin insists, resisting the urge to predict a rout. “Will I try to knock him out? The knockout doesn’t come when you try to force it. I’m prepared for anything. I’m prepared for King Kong if I have to. That’s what fighters do.

“As far as those things that I expect out of Winky Wright, I expect Winky to be at his best and for me to be at my best and that’s what boxing fans like to see. That’s why this fight landed on Showtime, because this is going to be a great fight for the fans.”

Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of Boxingscene.com. Follow Jake on Twitter: @JakeNDaBox or submit questions/comments to JakeNDaBox@gmail.com