Second shot
Quillen wants WBO belt back
Ex-middleweight champion Peter (Kid Chocolate) Quillin ends his year of inactivity for what’ll be anything but a sparring match with an also-ran.
The undefeated Quillin (31-0, 22 KO) takes on southpaw Andy Lee (34-2, 24 KO), a London-born Irishman, for the very WBO middleweight title he vacated last September in the April 11 co-main event of “Premier Boxing Champions” at the Barclays Center.
Lee, 30, earned Quillin’s old strap this past December, when he TKO’d Matt Korobov of Russia in round six of their championship bout.
“First of all, this is how I prepare for (Lee): I’m not overconfident and I’m not underestimating him,” Quillin, 31, tells Viva.
“It’s a guy I have to take seriously, because if I don’t, what’ll happen is he can always come up with a big win against guys that think they already got him beat.”
After the Chicago-born, Cuban-American Quillin cruised to a unanimous decision over Lukas Konecny last spring, his mandatory challenger was Korobov.
To the shock of the boxing community, the former champ spurned $1.4 million to face the Russian upon abandoning his 160-pound title.
“Can I tell you what the most tough s--t I had to deal with is? People asking me why did I vacate the belt,” says Quillin, who became a first-time dad in 2014.
“They think so much about the money, the $1.4 million that I turned down. And I keep telling them I had family issues going on.
“I don’t have to go into details and tell you my uncle was dying of cancer, or I just had a baby boy and I’m trying to learn what being a father is all about. I didn’t want to miss any time.”