In 2012 Peter Quillin won the WBO middleweight title and defended it three times before vacating in 2014. His WBO mandatory challenger was Matt Korobov who was undefeated in 24 contests with 14 knockouts and Quillin opted to vacate the title rather than face his mandatory.
Andy Lee then got the opportunity and surprised everyone by pulling off the upset in a thrilling knockout comeback in the sixth. Now that Korobov is out of the picture and the title rests with Andy Lee who has been stopped twice previously in his career, Quillin wants back into the title picture and is being given a shot at Lees newly aquired title. My question is, why are the WBO allowing this?
Quillin is a decent fighter, but if he is going to duck opponents why would they allow him to represent them as their champion and the holder of their belt. He is clearly not the main man at 160 anyway, as it is a division shared by long time WBA champion Gennady Golovkin and Peurto Rican legend WBC champion Miguel Cotto. If Quillin avoided fighting someone like Korobov then you can guarentee he would never agree to fight someone like Golovkin, which makes a unification impossible.
It is not as if there are not other good names at 160 who could fight Lee for a title and Quillin could earn his way back into the world title picture with a win over one of these names also. Daniel Geale, Sam Soliman, Jorge Heiland, David Lemieux, Daniel Jacobs, Billy Joe Saunders and many other tough fighters share the division. It seems odd that a fighter can vacate his title every time a tough challenger comes along and simply pick it back up after the hard work is done.
Hopefully Andy Lee can cause another upset when the two do meet.
