Photo credit: Rosie Cohe/Showtime

Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin is open to facing Danny Jacobs in an immediate rematch after he was stunned in a first-round loss to Jacobs in December.

“I would,” Quillin told RingTV.com on Monday of facing Jacobs right away without any tuneups. “I had three fights last year. I’m game. My body is good. Kid Chocolate has never been scared. Never have, never will. I’m coming back very soon.”

Quillin (32-1-1, 23 knockouts) was buzzed by a slicing right hand and a shot to the temple in the first round back on Dec. 5 at Barclays Center. Quillin, a former middleweight titlist, skidded across the ring, trying to regain his balance. Referee Harvey Dock noticed a glassy look in Quillin’s eyes and waived the middleweight fight off at 1:25 of the first round.

Because of the suddenness of the stoppage, many have clamored for a rematch. Quillin is open to it.

“He just caught me with a good punch at the right time,” he said. “I was trying to get myself back together. But I was in the best shape of my whole life. He beat me at my best. Things happen. We can fight again and the same thing could happen or it could be totally different and I could hit him with the first punch and get him out of there. That’s why everyone wants to see it happen again. So if it does, I’m game for it.”

Quillin plans to talk with his team, which includes manager Al Haymon, to work out a plan for going forward. He wouldn’t give a time-frame for when he wants to return, just that he is excited to restart his career.

“I’ll sit down with my team,” he said, “and come up with what’s next.”

Quillin plans on keeping his team intact. There are no plans to change trainers, for example, he says.

“I’m not going to go through my whole career looking to fix what happened,” he says. “I’m just going to fix what I already got. I’m trying to be a person that is really a true leader and makes people around me better.”

He wants everyone to know he’s moved on from what happened in December.

“People think I’m upset and everything,” he said. “But I’m like, this is the name of the game. I’m still a champion in spirit. I’m not going to (dwell on) what happened.

Quillin has found a silver lining in his stunning first-round stoppage loss. Though he was badly hurt, he never went down.

“Anybody can get caught, right?” Quillin said from his home in Brooklyn. “In the first round I got caught and thank God I didn’t get dropped. I’m very thankful I proved to myself that I can handle going through a struggle like that and getting hurt. And I was able to keep trying, like I’m going to keep swinging until I can’t swing no more.”

Quillin was respectful of the stoppage, still refusing to criticize Dock even though some thought it was a quick stoppage.

“I look at Harvey doing his job,” Quillin said. “He was doing his job to protect the fighter. I don’t have to bash him for that. A championship fight of that magnitude being stopped, I don’t have anything bad to say about him doing his job.”

Since the fight with Jacobs, Quillin has been traveling, visiting his mom in Michigan, where he bough her a home, trekking to Italy with friends and family. He’s thinking of buying a home in New Jersey with his wife and 17-month-old son.

He worked out for the first time on Monday.

“I just broke the belly so I know what we have to tackle now,” he said. “It wasn’t in the boxing gym but just to do something physical. I felt good. Now, we’re back to thinking of what my next move is going to be.”

He’s confident he can one day reclaim his status as one of the top middleweights.

“Yeah of course,” he said.

Mitch Abramson can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter at @mabramson13

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