Saturday, March 21, 2008:
Andy Lee joins a long list of tall, lanky, Emmanuel Steward trained power punchers to get knocked out in spectacular fashion: Tommy Hearns, Lennox Lewis, Wladimir Klitschko, Kermit Cintron, and Jermain Taylor are the others. Unfortunately for Lee, his beat down didn’t come from a known good, or even great fighter, as did the other men in the list, but from Brian Vera, who got iced in the second round by Jaidon Codrington in the “Contender” series.
Lee came out looking like the future of the middleweight division that he is supposed to be as he dropped Vera with a nuclear left in round one. Vera, apparently not interested in helping along Lee’s career, got up, survived the round, and started dropping scuds as fast as he could load them. Not a particularly accurate puncher, Vera made up for his lack of precision with a kinetic determination that eventually has Lee reeling under a barrage of punches in round seven, prompting the referee to stop the fight at 2:17.
Although Lee had just landed a left and, it could be argued, was mounting his own assault, he waited too long to do so. A fighter cannot take two dozen unanswered punches and assume the referee isn’t going to think he’s finished for the night.
Now 15-1 with 12 KOs, Lee’s career is hardly ruined. He’s only 23-years-old, and, like the other Steward trained fighters listed above, has big fights, and probably world titles, in his future. He just needs to make sure he learned something from the loss. For his part, Brian Vera, 16-1 (10 KOs), showed enough power and heart to get him more TV exposure and and a little higher price tag. Good for him.
Andy Lee will be back. Most great fighters have lost at some point or another. The loss, if handled properly, can launch a major comeback. This is what I expect from Andy Lee. On April 12th we’ll all see the comeback by Kermit Cintron. Since his only loss in 05, he has been gaining momentum and has clearly made himself into a much better fighter. After he beats Margarito, he’ll be a major player in the ww division. No one likes to lose…but you can learn a lot from a loss if you are willing to truly get to the source of the loss and make the necessary changes. I give Cintron credit for doing just that!
I agree that Lee will be back, but he has a lot to work on (combination punching, proper distance, defense) before the word “great” gets used anywhere near him. As for Cintron, I too believe that he has improved since the Margarito fight, but his performance against a very limited Jesse Feliciano is worrisome. Maybe he just had a bad night because of his reportedly injured wrist, but Margarito is the wrong man to have a bad night against. In any case, it should be a great fight.