Nugaev, Quintero looking to earn title shot on Friday Night Fights

Nugaev, Quintero looking to earn title shot on Friday Night Fights

This week’s ESPN Friday Night Fights from the Pala Spa and Resort in Pala, California will feature a compelling 10 round main event in the lightweight division. WBA No. 3, WBC No. 7, and IBF No. 9 ranked Rustam Nugaev will face IBF #8, WBA #11, and former world title challenger Marvin Quintero. The winner of this fight could potentially challenge for a title in the division or at least make things a bit more interesting.

What makes this fight so intriguing is the contrast of where each fighter has been in the past year and where they have been in the past. Nugaev fought four times in 2013 and had four knockouts, while Quintero’s last fight was a split-decision loss in an IBF world title bout to Miguel Vazquez in 2012. Quintero was scheduled to fight in April of last year but pulled out due to a broken nose which occurred in a sparring session.

Quintero’s history in the ring suggests that he prefers to do damage to his opponents as his 21 knockouts and 72% knockout rate would attest to. In fact, out of his 29 fights, amazingly only 5 have gone to the judge’s score cards while he has been KO’d in three.

Nugaev has 16 knockouts among his 33 fights and a lower knockout rate but as 2013 proved he has a power stroke of his own and looks to get his opponent out of there as well. As promoter Gary Shaw put it, “Since returning to the U.S. from Russia in 2013, Nugaev has been unstoppable,” “No one has been able to withstand his aggressive come forward style”. Nugaev has only lost once in his career with 16 of his 33 fights going the distance.

A little about the physical side of things, Nugaev will have a 3” height and reach advantage while Quintero is a southpaw and Nugaev an orthodox fighter. One common opponent of note is Daniel Attah. He was KO’d in four rounds by Nugaev last year while Attah KO’d Quintero in two rounds back in 2010. That said, Attah was fighting at a higher level when he beat Quintero than when he lost to Nugaev.

Recently, Nugaev issued a challenge to WBO junior lightweight champion Mikey Garcia saying, “If you move up to 135 you need to go through me, a real fighter” referring to Garcia possibly taking a fight with Yuriorkis Gamboa and the fact that Gamboa would, as Nugaev put it, “run the entire fight”. Nugaev would be wise to keep his mind off a future showdown with Garcia and focus on Quintero as even though he hasn’t fought since 2012, any fighter who only let the judges’ score 5 of his 29 bouts is coming to fight.

-Rick Guerrero / @lapittrick

-Contributor to www.BehindTheGloves.com