by David P. Greisman

Andy Lee hit the canvas with 30 seconds left in the first round and was back in action with about 20 seconds to survive before the bell. Peter Quillin wasn’t in a rush to try to finish Lee off, though.

He had too much respect for what Lee was capable of doing.

“How much respect can you have for somebody that’s punching you hard and trying to take you out of there?” Quillin said at the post-fight press conference. “Every guy who try to go in and finish him off get knocked out. I’d have to be a dummy to go up in there. I got dropped because I was going in there not conscious of what he’s able to do.”

Lee was coming off a pair of counter-punch knockouts with his vaunted southpaw right hook: one over John Jackson in June 2014 and one over Matt Korobov last December. It was the right hook that dropped Quillin in the seventh round. Lee led with a left cross, then took a step back as Quillin came forward with a right of his own. Lee’s counter hook landed and Quillin went down on all fours, quickly rising.

“He hit me at the right time. I went down. I got back up. And it was a good fight,” Quillin said. “You can’t have the perfect story. I can write it out. If I had the ability to write the perfect story, you know what I would’ve did? I would’ve knocked him out as soon as I put him down. I would’ve ran outside and got my check and then went home and spent time with my family. But that’s not the way it goes.”

Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide. Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com