Andy Lee failed to listen to Steward’s instructions

By Boxing News - 06/17/2012 - Comments

Image: Andy Lee failed to listen to Steward's instructionsBy Eric Thomas: If you want to point your finger to one area that likely cost Andy Lee (28-2, 20 KO’s) the fight last night against WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) it was Lee’s decision to ignore his trainer Emanuel Steward’s advice to stop slugging with Chavez Jr. and focus on boxing him instead.

Over and over, Steward instructed Lee in between rounds to stop slugging with Chavez Jr., but Lee failed to do it. When each round started you saw Lee standing right in front of Chavez Jr., throwing power punches, letting him inside where Chavez Jr. had a huge weight advantage, and not moving around the ring. Lee knows how to box, and it’s surprising that he chose to not follow what Steward was telling him.

Steward told Lee “You’re giving the fight away,” by choosing to slug with the huge Chavez Jr., yet Lee simply couldn’t resist slugging with the Mexican fighter. He got caught up in Chavez Jr’s style of fighting and failed to fight his own game. Lee should have stopped and changed tactics when things started going wrong for him in the 5th round. He took a lot of head and hard body shots in that round. But instead he chose to come out slugging in both the 6th and 7th rounds.

As such, Lee blew his chance of winning the fight. I’m not sure he would have won it by using movement, because it was obviously a small ring that they had for Chavez Jr. However, Lee would have lasted a lot longer by moving around the ring than he did last Saturday night.

After the bout, Chavez Jr. revealed that he had been suffering leg cramps and he felt that was a reason why he couldn’t have put Lee away a lot earlier. I don’t buy any of that, but I do think Lee would have caused Chavez Jr. problems had he heeded Steward’s instructions and focused on moving around the ring instead of fighting Chavez Jr’s fight.



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