Andy Lee vs Peter Quillin ends in draw; Garcia beats Peterson

By Jeff Sorby - 04/11/2015 - Comments

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In an exciting fight, WBO middleweight champion Andy Lee (34-2-1, 24 KOs) got up off the canvas twice to rally in the second half of the fight to salvage a 12 round majority draw against former WBO 160 pound champion Peter Quillin (31-0-1, 22 KOs). Lee knocked Quillin down in the 7th round with a right hook to the head. That knockdown negated one of Quillin’s earlier knockdowns.

Lee fought well enough to deserve a victory, and he would have won if the referee hadn’t ruled a slip Lee as a knockdown in the 3rd round. It was a situation where Quillin stepped on Lee’s foot and then punched him at the same time, causing Lee to slip and fall to the canvas. Lee protested to the referee Steve Willis in telling him that it was a slip, but he still ruled it as a knockdown Unfortunately for Lee, this blown call by the referee resulted in him not winning the fight.

The scores were 113-113, 113-112 for Quillin and 113-112 for Lee. Boxing247.com scored the fight for Lee.

Quillin dominated the action in the early part of the fight, as he was able to shake Lee up almost every time he landed cleanly with a hard shot. The fight was a winnable one for Quillin in the early part if he had let his hands go and applied a lot of pressure.

Lee was ready to be knocked out in the first three to four rounds, but Quillin failed to put the pressure on Lee like other fighters had who had beaten him in the past. Instead of pressuring Lee, Quillin focused on throwing pot shots. This slow pace of fighting suited Lee, as he was able to pick his spots to nail Quillin with big left hands and right hooks.

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In a catch-weight fight at 143 pounds, unbeaten Danny Garcia (30-0, 17 KOs) took a pounding from Lamont Peterson (33-3-1, 17 KOs), but was able to win a 12 round majority decision on Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Garcia’s victory was the result of Peterson not throwing enough power shots in the first half of the fight, as he used a lot of movement and jabs to keep out of the way of Garcia.

Peterson gave Garcia way too much respect in those early rounds, and in hindsight it was a big mistake on Peterson’s part by fighting in that manner. Had Peterson fight like he’d always done during his career by pressuring Garcia, he would have won the fight and possibly knocked Garcia out. As it was, Peterson had Garcia’s face badly bruised round his right eye. If you were to compare the two fighters, you’d say that Peterson won the fight by looking at the two.

The judges scored it 114-114, 115-113 and 115-113 for Garcia. 114-114 would seem like a fair score because Garcia really caved in during the second half of the fight.

Garcia rarely gives rematches, but in this case he would be better off if he were to face Peterson again in order to show that this fight was just a fluke. Garcia can’t keep moving on after he wins by controversial decisions. Garcia looked awful in his fight against Mauricio Herrera in winning a controversial 12 round decision last year. Instead of giving Herrera a rematch, Garcia moved on and chose not to fight him again.

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Other action on the card:

Luis Collazo TKO 2 Christopher Degollado
Ryan Burnett KO 1 Stephon McIntyre
Prichard Colon TKO 9 Daniel Calzada
Viktor Postol UD 8 Jake Giuriceo