You’ve got to watch the quiet ones is a mantra in most boxing gyms, and few fighters walk with more understated venom than Andy Lee, who promises to show his nasty side against Billy Joe Saunders in Manchester on Saturday night.
This is a fight the industry has been waiting several months for – postponed twice and finally squeezed into the BoxNation calendar just before Christmas – with Lee’s WBO middleweight title the main prize, alongside domestic bragging rights and no little honour to be won and lost in the Travelling community they both proudly represent.
In other times and circumstances, it is an argument that might have been settled in a passionate bareknuckle row far from disapproving eyes – the sort for which Saunders’ great-grandfather, Absolom Beeney, was renowned more than 70 years ago – but these are serious professionals and there will be no shenanigans.
Lee is by a distance the more reserved of the two. He speaks in a low, Limerick hum, considering every word, and is never drawn towards the sort of controversy Tyson Fury has delivered to a wider audience since winning the world heavyweight title two weekends ago in Düsseldorf.
Nevertheless, he points out: “Once that bell goes, I’m a totally different character. It’s like there’s a switch as soon as I hear a knock on the dressing room door saying, ’time to walk’. There’s a transition in me and I become a horrible, nasty person. That will come out in this fight.”
In the frustratingly long lead-up, both fighters have held their dignity, showing respect for each other while not giving ground in any way. It will not be a timid affair. Saunders, the more outspoken of the two, has spiced up some of the press conferences with statements about women that fall squarely in the Fury lexicon, but he has shown little outward hostility to Lee, whom he acknowledges as a dangerous adversary.
Lee scrabbled around major and minor venues in the United States for many years, learning his craft from the late Manny Steward, before returning to London, where he was born 31 years ago, and fine-tuning his gifts with Adam Booth, who guided him to his world title. He was behind against the unbeaten Matt Korobov until he found the punch to stop the rot then finish it.
“For me,” Lee says, “this is just another fight. Yes, there’s a lot at stake between us – my family name and honour, his family name and honour – but, more importantly, my world title is at stake. I’ve got a lot of respect for Billy and his team. We’re professional sportsmen. What you’re going to see on Saturday night is a great, great fight between two of the best 160-pounders in the world.”
As to who is the very best middleweight, as ever in the chaos of modern boxing, that is yet to be decided. In London last weekend, Chris Eubank Jr boxed superbly to force Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan to quit after seven one-sided rounds, earning a mandatory shot at the WBA champion, Daniel Jacobs, who the previous weekend scored a spectacular one-round stoppage over Peter Quillin, who drew against Lee in the Irishman’s last fight.
As Saunders sees Lee’s career: “He’s been in big fights in America, but he’s lost big fights there as well – against Julio César Chávez Jr and Brian Vera. I’ve not lost yet and I don’t intend losing. He was getting beat by Korobov until his punch power got him out of trouble, and he drew with Quillin, which I would have been disgusted with.”
Saunders cannot match Lee for single-shot power, and there is little between them in boxing ability, but the champion has the longer pedigree. He has known hard times. He has come back from seemingly dire circumstances to find a way to win, and I suspect he will do so again to keep his title with either a late stoppage or a close points decision on what should be a memorable night.
TV: Box Nation, Saturday night, 10pm
