By Dan Ambrose: Former WBO middleweight champion Andy Lee (34-3-1, 24 KOs) will be fighting for the first time in a year and a half when he faces 28-year-old KeAndrae Leatherwood (19-3-1, 12 KOs) on the untelevised portion of the Gennady Golovkin vs. Daniel Jacobs card on March 18 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
RingTV.com is reporting the news about the 32-year-old Lee fighting Leatherwood on the Golovkin-Jacobs card.
It’s a winnable fight for the 6’2” Lee, who hasn’t fought since losing his WBO 160lb title to Billy Joe Saunders by a 12 round majority decision on December 19, 2015 at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. Lee was knocked down twice by Saunders in that fight in round 3, and he had to rally to comeback to make it close.
“We’re excited to have Andy on the show,”Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler said to RingTV.com “He’s fought at MSG (three) times before. He’s undefeated. We’re definitely excited to have him on the card.”
Lee might be able to lure some of the Irish boxing fans from the New York area to come see him fight against the little known Leatherwood.
Lee didn’t fight at all in 2016, and it’s unclear why he chose not to. The last thing Lee needed was to throw away a year of his career after he lost the fight to Saunders. That was a close fight that Lee would have won if he wasn’t knocked down twice in the 3rd.
Lee got careless and paid the price in getting dropped twice. By the time Lee started to focus on his boxing, he was already well behind in the fight. Two of the judges didn’t do Lee any favors with their scoring, as they didn’t give him credit for a lot of the rounds in the second half of the fight in which he appeared to beat Saunders. Lee appeared to do enough to either earn a draw or a victory, as he dominated the fight from round 5 through 12.
Leatherwood, who comes from Birmingham, Alabama, has won his last five fights since losing to Taronze Washington by a 4th round knockout on April 3, 2015. Leatherwood was also beaten by John Jackson by s 6th round knockout in December 2011 and Hugo Centeno Jr. by a 10 round unanimous decision in March 2013. Other than those losses, Leatherwood hasn’t beaten any good fighters during his career. He’s beaten weaker fighters and not stepped it up properly against good fighters in the division.
Lee was supposed to fight Golovkin several years ago, but Golovkin was unable to take the fight. It would have been an interesting one to see at the time.
Before losing to Saunders, Lee had rallied to fight to a 12 round raw against Peter Quillin in April 2015, and rallied to beat Matt Karobov and John Jackson by knockout. Lee’s right hook nailed him out in the Quillin, Jackson and Karobov fights. If not for that weapon, he would have lost all three of those fights.
Lee should be able to beat Leatherwood without any problems as long as he can stay on his feet. Andy Lee has top notch punching power. His whole problem is his lack of a chin.