By Scott Gilfoid: #6 WBC, #10 WBO, #11 WBA, #14 IBF, middleweight contender Andy Lee (32-2, 22 KO’s) will be John Jackson (18-1, 15 KO’s), the son of former middleweight knockout artist Julian Jackson, on June 7th at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York. The Lee-Jackson fight will be taking place on the HBO pay-per-view card headlined by WBC 160lb champion Sergio Martinez vs. Miguel Cotto. The Lee-Jackson fight will take place at 154.
It’s unclear where the Lee vs. Jackson fight will be staged on the card, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this winds up as the chief support for the card, because there’s also talk of Yuri Foreman fighting on the card in a fight against Jorge Melendez. It looks like they’re loading up the undercard with guys that are a long shot to become future champions. Foreman already won a title years ago, but it’s highly unlikely that he’ll ever win another one given how strong the 154lb division is now.
It’s quite probable that Jackson, 25, will knock Lee out and pretty finish off his career. A loss here for the slender 6’2” Lee will likely knock him out of the top 15 rankings at 160, and put him in a situation where he’ll need years to fight his way back to where he is now in the rankings. I mean, if Lee can’t beat Jackson then there probably is no point in him continuing on because there are much better fighters than him in the middleweight division.
Jackson doesn’t have the huge punching power that his father Julian had, but he’s definitely a respectable puncher. I rate John Jackson as being just under Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in terms of power, but with much better hand speed. Jackson can definitely bang when he’s sitting down on his punches and throwing with proper form. He sometimes throws arm punches, and that takes away a lot of his power. Jackson was beaten by Willie Nelson by a 10 round decision in 2012 in a fight that Jackson fought well enough to deserve the decision. I thought it was a clear cut win for Jackson, but the judges seemed to be watching something else. Since that defeat, Jackson has won his last four fights against Jorge Daniel Miranda, Tony Hirsch, Alexis Pena and Alexander Hernandez.
Lee, 29, has looked like a shell of his former self ever since his loss to former WBC 160lb champ Chavez Jr. in 2012. While Lee has won his last four fights since then, he’s looked awful in each of the fights, and not like the guy that he was while coming up the ranks. In his last fight, Lee defeated Frank Haroche Horta by an 8 round majority decision earlier this month in a fight that Lee deserved to lose.
It would be in Lee’s best interest to go after the young Jackson immediately to try and bang him out quickly, because if Jackson is able to hang around for any length of time, he’s going to nail Lee with one of his big right hands or left hooks and plant him for the 10 round. Like I said, Jackson is definitely a puncher and Lee hasn’t tasted power like that since he was destroyed by Chavez Jr. in 2012.
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