Andy Lee: It could be explosive once Quillin and I exchange punches

By Boxing News - 04/08/2015 - Comments

lee91By Scott Gilfoid: WBO middleweight champion Andy Lee (34-2, 24 KOs) expects to see fireworks on Saturday when he and former WBO 160 pound champion Peter Quillin (31-0, 22 KOs) let their hands go in their fight on NBC on Premier Boxing Champions at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Lee, 30, feels that he’s made a lot of progress with his career in the past year in terms of the technical changes he’s made after working hard in training camps. Lee has bailed himself out of tough situations in fights against John Jackson and Matt Korobov by landing huge right hooks to capture the wins.

It’s hard to say for sure whether the 6’2” Lee has improved in the last year because he’s really not faced anyone that you can call an unbeatable fighter. I mean, John Jackson was little more than a hard-hitting but flawed junior middleweight, so it’s not exactly a big deal that Lee was able to beat a 154 pound fighter.

If Gennady Golovkin were to drop down to 154 to fight a fringe contender like Jackson, I think boxing fans would be crying bloody murder about Golovkin making that move. But for some reason, Lee got away with taking the fight without getting slammed in a major way for him combing the junior middleweight division for opponents rather than facing bigger and stronger middleweights.

“We’ve made unbelievable progress in the last year on my skills and everything has really just clicked for me,” Lee said via Fighthype.com. “We’ve made physical and tactical improvements in the gym since the last fight and hopefully they’ll show up in the ring on Saturday.”

We’re going to see whether Lee’s progress in the past year is for real or not when he gets inside the ring with Quillin, because this guy is definitely a top five middleweight. I mean, I don’t rate Quillin as being anywhere near the top middleweights like Golovkin, Miguel Cotto, and Tureano Johnson, but I do see him as either No.4 or No.5 at 160, depending on how well he does against Lee on Saturday.

There are some other decent middleweights like Billy Joe Saunders, Chris Eubank Jr, David Lemieux, Willie Monroe Jr, Jorge Sebastian Heiland, Hassan N’Dam and Jermall Charlo who also are up there. I could see one or more of those guys giving Lee and Quillin a lot of grief if they were to ever face them.

“I think this could be a technical fight or it could be a bit of a fire fight,” Lee said. “It’s going to be a little of both at times. There will be moments where we’re looking at each other, figuring each other out, but once we exchange it could be explosive.”

Lee is definitely going to need to punch with Quillin at times in this fight for him to have a chance at winning. Lee isn’t going to be able to beat Quillin unless he lets his hands go, because Quillin will use his boxing skills to pound out a decision. After a year out of the ring, I think Quillin would be more than happy to win on a 12 round decision. He’s not necessarily going to be looking to go out on his shield in this fight by letting his hands go in a war.

I think Quillin will focus on fighting smart and looking to pick his spots to brain Lee with some big right hands and left hooks. Quillin has to know from watching Lee’s fights that he is susceptible to getting knocked out in the later rounds when he gasses out. Quillin has good stamina and he could try and drown Lee in the deep end on Saturday by dragging him into the 10th, 11th or 12th rounds.



Comments are closed.