By Scott Gilfoid: #2 WBA, #2 WBO, #6 IBF, #7 WBC middleweight contender Peter Quillin (31-0, 22 KOs) put newly crowned WBO middleweight champ Andy Lee (34-2, 24 KOs) on notice that he plans on running over him on April 11th to take back his World Boxing Organization title in their fight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
The Lee-Quillin fight will likely be televised on NBC as part of the “Premier Boxing Champions” series, along with the Danny Garcia vs. Lamont Peterson fight.
Quillin, who is arguably the third best fighter in the 160 pound division, recently gave up his WBO title after he was put in the position to take a fight that wasn’t appealing to him in Matt Korobov. But now that fight is out of the way, Quillin, 31, is ready to reclaim his WBO title and continue to defend it against all comers.
“Not taking away from what Lee has accomplished in his career, but I’m just coming to take my title back,” Quillin said via RingTV.com.
Lee has a nice right hook going for him, but he’s going to be really up against it in this fight with the numerous weapons that Quillin has in his arsenal. Quillin can punch with devastating power with either hand, and he’s got a number of different punches he can land to hurt his opponents. He’s got a nice hook, uppercut, and straight right hand that he can KO his opponents with. This isn’t a situation where Lee is going to be facing a guy with only one dangerous hand like it was when he beat John Jackson and Korobov in his last two fights.
Quillin has the kind of power that will get Lee’s attention in no matter what hand he hits him with.
#1 WBO contender Billy Joe Saunders agreed to step aside to let the Quillin vs. Lee fight to take place. Saunders pretty much had no other choice. If he had said no to step aside, then Lee would have vacated the WBO title, and then that would have removed any possibility of Lee and Saunders facing each other in the future.
At least this way there’s a chance, such as it is, that Lee will be able to get past Quillin and then defend his title against Saunders in what will likely be a big money fight for both guys. However, the more likely scenario is that Saunders will be facing Quillin later on in 2015, and that’ll put Saunders in a bad situation where he’ll need to deal with huge power that he’s never faced before.
It’s a bad deal for Saunders, but it’s the only deal he had. If he had insisted in not stepping aside, he’d have found himself in a situation where he’d have to fight for the vacant WBO title against either #3 WBO Jermall Charlo or #4 WBO David Lemieux, and those guys are very, very dangerous with far better power than Lee.
Saunders would be facing an opponent with arguably much more talent than Lee, which is why it was in Saunders’ best interest to step aside and let the Lee-Quillin fight take place. He now has the chance at least of fighting Lee if the Irish fighter can beat Quillin.
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