By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBO middleweight champion Peter Quillin (31-0, 22 KOs) came in over the weight limit on Friday in his weigh-in for his title shot against WBO middleweight champion Andy Lee (34-2, 24 KOs) for their fight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Quillin, 31, weighed in at 161.4 pounds. He has two hours to burn off the 1.4 pounds in order to make the 160 pound limit. Obviously, this isn’t a good thing for Quillin because he would wind up weakened from having to take off the weight, and that’s if he can even take it off. If not, then Quillin won’t have the chance of winning the WBO title even if he whips Lee. As for Lee, he made the weight comfortably in coming in at 159.6. A slight weight advantage could help Quillin get past Lee tonight. It’s a situation where Quillin needs to make a big decision. Does he want the win or does he value the WBO belt enough to potentially drain himself too much to win. I don’t know that Quillin will help himself if he takes the weight off and wind up too weak to fight on Saturday. I mean, he’ll likely be fine in the first four rounds, but after that the weight loss could be a problem for him. We’ve seen many weight drained fighters in the past lose fights that they would otherwise won simply because they took too much weight off. It would be a tragedy if that were to happen to Quillin on Saturday.

I’m not sure what happened with Quillin in training camp as far as him monitoring his weight. It could be that his scale was a little off, making him think that he would be able to make the weight without any problems. That’s something that’s happened a lot. Quillin also could have assumed that he would be able to dehydrate enough to make the weight without any problems. Obviously, he was wrong if that was the case. But you have to remember that Quillin hasn’t fought in a year since his fight against Lukas Konecny on April 19th in 2014.

Quillin gave up his WBO title shortly after that rather than face Matt Korbov. Taking off a year likely made it difficult for Quillin to make the weight. As it is, Quillin is big for the middleweight division, as he previously started his career as a super middleweight. It might be a situation where Quillin needs to start thinking seriously about moving up in weight to the super middleweight division. I’m sure he’ll resist that move because there are a lot talents in that weight class like Anthony Dirrell, Andre Dirrell and Andre Ward. I don’t think Quillin matches up with any of them. The middleweight division is pretty much barren of quality fighters once you get past Gennady Golovkin, so I can understand why Quillin would want to stay in that weight class.

WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (29-0, 17 KOs) made weight for his catch-weight fight against IBF 140 pound champion Lamont Peterson. Garcia weighed in at 142.2 pounds. Peterson came in right at the limit at 143. Neither Garcia or Peterson will have their 140 pound world titles on the line for the fight because Garcia wanted the fight to be at a catch-weight of 143 in the welterweight division. This will likely be the last time that Garcia fights at a catch-weight, as he plans on moving up to the full weight of 147 pounds for the welterweight instead of continuing with his catch-weight fights.

The Garcia-Peterson and Lee-Quillin fights will be televised on NBC on the Premier Boxing Champions. It’s hoped that the fight will bring in huge ratings unlike the recent CBS card.

Weights:

Andy Lee 159.6 vs. Peter Quillin 161.4
Danny Garcia 142.2 vs. Lamont Peterson 143