On August 24, the day after Joaquin Enriquez Quillin was born, his father, Peter Quillin, posted a photo of the newborn's left hand clutching his dad's right forefinger.
Since then, the 31-year-old Quillin has posted numerous pictures of his child, among the most recent being one in which the infant is wearing a white boxing robe and a pair of miniature gloves around his neck while his cupped right hand clutches a 160-pound title belt.
"I never would have ever thought that you could love someone more than you love yourself," said Quillin, whose wife, Allison, gave birth to Joaquin after having a miscarriage in October 2013, shortly before her husband’s 10th-round stoppage of Gabriel Rosado.
"You know, just having my kid, and watching my wife give birth to him, that just helped me to generate more love for her and my son. You think that, on your own, that you could fight hard for yourself, but I'm able to be even more motivated that I have the family that I do now. To have a kid, you find out that you can fight that much harder than you do for yourself. It's a blessing, and I'm very thankful for it."
Quillin (31-0, 22 knockouts) will challenge 160-pound champion Andy Lee on April 11 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, as the co-main event on a Premier Boxing Champions card on NBC.
Quillin, who is nicknamed “Kid Chocolate,” will be fighting at Barclays Center for the third time.
He scored six knockdowns during a 12-round unanimous decision over previously unbeaten Hassan N'Dam in October 2012, and dropped Fernando Guerrero four times on the way to a seventh-round technical knockout in April 2011.
After three defenses of the title he won against N'Dam, including a 10th-round TKO of Gabriel Rosado in October 2013 and a unanimous decision over Lukas Konecny in April 2014, Quillin relinquished his belt in September.
Lee (34-2, 24 KOs) then won the vacated championship by stopping then-unbeaten Matt Korobov in the sixth round in Las Vegas in December.
“I think that [Lee] actually has a pretty good right hook,” Quillin said about his southpaw opponent. “He's got that hook, but with that being said, I'm just going to do what I do, just like I do every time.
“I believe that he has more to lose than I do. He has got something to prove to himself and his fans that he's not going to lose again.”
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- Peter Quillin
