Danny Garcia vs. Adrien Broner next? Lee-Quillin split draw, rematch?

---

By Jason Gonzalez at ringside, Doghouse Boxing (April 13, 2015)

Follow @DoghouseBoxing


Danny Garcia vs. Adrien Broner?

Tweets by @DoghouseBoxing

Brooklyn, NY - The highly anticipated matchup between unified junior welterweight champion (WBA/WBC) Danny “Swift” Garcia, 30-0, (17) and IBF title holder Lamont Peterson, 33-3-1, (17) should have been a fight that saw one undisputed champion. It should have been a scrap in which the victor would have claimed supremacy at 140 pounds. But instead fight fans alike had to settle for a non-title bout that was fought at a catch weight of 143 pounds.

Last Saturday night, a raucous crowd of 12,300 packed the Barclays Center, and witnessed Garcia pull out a majority decision by scores of 115-113 twice, and 114-114 in the main event of the Premier Boxing Champions series. With the loss Peterson was required to vacate his portion of the junior welterweight titles.

“That was a war,” Garcia said. “That’s what the fans want to see. He stuck to his game plan and moved a lot. He did a good job and I did a good job. I feel great and I was really prepared. I felt like it was getting edgy in the middle there. I thought it was close, I’m not gonna lie. But felt like I did enough to win.”

In the early rounds, Garcia appeared to be the aggressor, while Peterson retreated. Garcia was attempting to dictate the tempo of the fight by being the aggressor; however, Peterson chose to run a track meet. The first half of the fight resembled an episode of “Tom and Jerry”. It was a cat and mouse chase of the worst kind. The crowd voiced their opinion by serenading the venue with boos, and Garcia was trying to lure and bait Peterson into engaging. However, he refused to fall for it, and stuck to his strategy. The game plan was to come on strong in the later rounds. “I did my part. I’m not calling robbery but it was a good fight,” Peterson said. “I don’t expect an easy journey for me to get where I’m going. I feel great. That’s probably the least contact I’ve ever had in a fight.”

Heading into the 6th frame, the momentum of the fight started to shift in Peterson’s momentum. He planted his feet on the canvas, and began to attack a visibly fading Garcia. Peterson started working the jab, and began to attack Garcia’s body.

Although this may have been the type of scrap that Garcia may have been looking for, Peterson fared the better of the two pugilists, due to his endurance. However, the ninth round provided us with fireworks, as the two exchanged hooks in what would be the best round of the night.

Peterson continued to crank up the throttle in the championship rounds. He fought with urgency; he pressured Garcia, and landed a few hard shots that left Garcia’s right eye swollen. Garcia seemed affected the remainder of the way. He may not have been able to see clearly out of the eye, while Peterson attacked it.

“Lamont fought a great fight. He can’t do the judges’ job too,” said Barry Hunter, Peterson’s trainer. “Mr. Garcia definitely knew he was in the fight of his life tonight. Lamont did a great job of sticking to his game plan. I couldn’t have been more proud of him even if he got the decision.”

The bottom line was that Peterson started too late, and he gave away to many early rounds. As for Garcia, a case can be made that he may have peaked, after his brilliant outing against Lucas Matthysse nearly two years ago. Garcia was given a gift decision last year against Mauricio Herrera, and doesn’t get any props for knocking out Rod Salka 8 months ago. Not to mention that he can no longer make the 140 pound limit. This is Garcia’s second non-title fight in a row. A move up in weight is inevitable.

“I do think I have to go up in weight because it’s affecting my performance,” Garcia said. “But I feel like I did a great job tonight.”

Garcia has a mandatory title defense against Viktor Postol of the Ukraine, but from a business stand point, financially the bigger fights are at welterweight.

“A move up in weight is being considered,” said Angel Garcia, father and trainer of Danny. “A move up in weight is being discussed, but Danny is the 140 pound champion. That’s what it boils down to. It’s our job to defend to defend those titles. But we will see what happens.”

It appears that father and son are on opposite sides of the fence, when it comes to the issue with moving up in weight. However, if Team Garcia is looking to land a fight with the winner of the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao mega fight on May 2, Danny clearly isn’t ready for those guys just yet. But a fight with Adrien Broner, who was in attendance, would garner a lot of interest, and generate a lot of revenue.

Whenever you hear fight fans express disenchantment with the sanctioning bodies, and utter how meaningless the titles are nowadays, you can’t help but agree. The fight between Peter “Kid Chocolate" Quillin and “Irish” Andy Lee epitomized the aforementioned statement. Quillin was deemed ineligible to compete for the middleweight title, when he failed to make the 160 pound limit. [Quillin weighed 161.4.] With Quillin unable to win the title, Lee couldn’t lose it either. But either way it didn’t matter. The fans were treated to good fight, in the co-feature bout of the Garcia-Peterson card.

The consensus amongst boxing pundits was that Quillin-Lee would be the most competitive matchup of the evening. You would be remiss to disagree. Both Quillin and Lee fought to a 12-round split draw. The scorecards read 113-112 for Lee, 113-112 for Quillin, and 113-113. The fight started off slowly with both guys reluctant to engage. Quillin was guarding against the southpaw’s right hook over the top, while Lee was protecting himself from being hit with the straight right hand. (This is the most effective weapon against left-handed fighters.)

Towards the end of the round, Quillin drew first blood. He scored a knockdown after landing a straight right hand on Lee’s kisser. Lee would beat the count, but was still on wobbly legs. And though it may have seemed that the fight was going to end in the 1st, Lee survived, ultimately being saved by the bell.

It was more of the same in the 3rd round. Quillin put Lee on the seat of his pants once more, via a left hook-right hook combination. And once again Lee beat the count and fought on. With the cards stacked against him, Lee sustained a laceration above his left eye.

“It was a tough fight. I got dropped early because I was lazy, but I got the momentum late in the fight and boxed consistently," Lee said, now 34-2-1, (24). "I understand with two knockdowns, people felt he won. The decision was fair. I could have done better tonight."

As the fight progressed, though intermittently, Lee appeared gun-shy. Now in the middle rounds, and heading in the direction of a loss, Lee may have had the spirit of his trainer, the late great Emanuel Steward whisper in his ear, and tell him that he is losing the contest. Eventually, Lee landed a picture perfect left-right hook combination to the jaw of Quillin that floored him. But right before Lee could seal the deal, time was up and the round was over.

"There's a reason why judges are judges," Quillin said, now 31-0-1, (22), and is open to the idea of a rematch. "They see it their way. I respect the decision. The next go around should be in Ireland [referring to the rematch], he has an Irish last name and he might find some of his ancestors.”

With the fight heading into the championship rounds, the bout was up for grabs. Quillin may have had a slight edge on the cards because of the 2 knockdowns. Lee got the nod in 4 out of the last 5 rounds on the scorecard. Had Lee won the 12th and final round, he would have won the fight.

The verdict in press row was that Quillin had won the contest, but that a draw was fair. Quillin let opportunities go by, in which, Lee outhustled him. Quillin started strong but faded down the stretch. The lulls in activity contributed to his demise.

Lee won the vacant title in December of last year, by knocking Matt Korobov. The same belt Quillin relinquished the same year.

"There's no perfect story," Quillin said. "I come from nothing, and to have a little bit is something. I was here to fight. I was able to go 12 rounds. I could have kept going."

Don’t be shocked if there isn’t an immediate rematch between the two. Quillin will most likely move on to fight Daniel Jacobs in the not too distant future, for Jacobs portion of the middleweight crown.

Junior welterweight contender Viktor Postol returned to the ring, since defeating Selcuk Aydin a year ago. Postol schooled Jake Giuriceo over eight lopsided rounds, en route to a unanimous decision. Postol, now 27-0, (11) scored two shutouts on 2 of the 3 scorecards (80-72), while the other read 79-73.

Postol boxed the ring-rust off, and looked great while in the process. With the victory Postol has officially become the number contender in the junior welterweight division. With the loss Giuriceo now falls to 17-4-1 (4). Former welterweight title-holder Luis Collazo 36-6, (19) returned to the ring since putting on a disappointing performance against Amir Khan in May of last year. Collazo easily defeated Chris Degollado with 2 rounds. Collazo let loose in the 2nd and caught Degollado with a hard shot, which put him in the corner. Collazo moved in and connected with a flurry of punches, prompting the referee to call a halt to the bout. Degollado, is now the loser of 4 consecutive matchups. He now sports a resume of 10-5, (8).

Junior middleweight Prichard Colon, 14-0, (11) stopped Daniel Calzada, 11-14-2, (2), in the 9th round of a scheduled 10 rounder. The time of the stoppage was 1:38.

Female junior featherweight Heather Hardy, 12-0, (2), earned a no contest against Renata Decomsodi 11-6, (4). An unfortunate clash of heads with Decomsodi, caused a gash underneath Decomsodi’s right eye. The end came time at the 1:57 mark of the 3rd stanza.

Bantamweight Ryan Burnett 8-0, (7) KO1 Stephon McIntyre 2-8-2. Burnett landed a left hook to that left McIntyre on the canvas screaming in pain for the count of 10. The time of the stoppage was 2:59.

Walk-Out Bouts Results:

Welterweight Errol Spence Junior, 16-0, (13) TKO4 Samuel Vargas 20-2-1 (10).

Marcus Browne, 14-0, (11) TKO6 Aaron Pryor Jr. 19-8-1, (12).

Felix Diaz, 17-0, (8) UD10 Gabriel Bracero 23-2, (4). The scores were 98-90, 97-91 and 96-92.

Jay Gon’s Ringside Tidbits:

WBA welterweight Keith Thurman and WBO junior middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade revealed that they fought each other 4 times in the amateurs. Andrade won 3 out of the 4 fights.

Thurman informed Maxboxing, that he was sparring with Ronald “Winky” Wright and Jeff Lacy when he was 16-years-old. He also stated that he sparred with Chad Dawson, and a heavyweight that weighed 225 pounds. And according to him, all it took was “One-time”.

Garcia informed and showed the media that he has 6 toes on his right foot.

--

Why stop with just this!? Tons more fresh new updates have hit our Boxing news wire on our home page (DoghouseBoxing.com) - Also never miss a punch, check with our full archives for today and yesterday's content at: Archive / News Wire

For much more, check out Boxing's largest daily news wire featured on our home page here at Doghouse Boxing.

Thank you for using DoghouseBoxing.com