By Scott Gilfoid: WBO middleweight champion Andy Lee (34-2-1, 24 KOs) says he’s not looking past his title defense against #1 WBO challenger Billy Joe Saunders (22-0, 12 KOs) on December 19th at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, UK.

There has been talk that Lee, 31, is already in discussions for a good money unification fight against IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, but Lee denies this. He says he’s totally focused on his title defense against Saunders, as he should be. Saunders has enough boxing skills to beat Lee, and we’ve already seen Lee have to rally to win his recent fights against John Jackson and Matt Karobov.

Lee even had to salvage a 12 round draw against Peter Quillin last April in a fight in which Lee was knocked down twice in the first three rounds.

“It would be stupid of me or Adam Booth to look past Saunders,” Lee said via ESPN.com. “He’s a dangerous fighter who could take my title. There’s no way at all I’d be overlooking him. Golovkin is the golden carrot for everyone in the middleweight division, but I have to deal with Saunders first.”

I wouldn’t say that Golovkin is the golden carrot for all the fighters in the 160lb division. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Miguel Cotto don’t seem to fancy the job, and neither does Daniel Jacobs, Saunders or Daniel Jacobs. That pretty much clears out the top fighters in the middleweight division.

As far as I can tell, Lee is the only top gun that is remotely interested in fighting Golovkin. Yeah, there are some talented contenders like Tureano Johnson who badly wants to fight Golovkin, but he’s not a big name, and it’s not a fight that you could sell on HBO PPV.

I don’t know if Lee would be better off taking the fight with Golovkin if he gets past Saunders. Lee might be better off milking his WBO title for a while rather than facing Golovkin for one big payday and winding up getting knocked out by him in 1-6 rounds. The problem that Lee has is he won’t have much time to milk his title after the Saunders fight.

Lee can get in two voluntary defenses after Saunders, and then he’ll need to face the talented Arif Magomedov, which would be a very, very tough fight for Lee. Magomedov has excellent boxing skills, and good punching power. He’s not another Golovkin, but he’s still a very good fighter.

I could definitely see Lee losing to Magomedov. The question that Lee has to ask himself is whether he’ll make more money fighting Golovkin than he would in taking two voluntary defenses and then facing Magomedov. If Lee is only going to make $500,000 per fight for his next three fights, then I think he should face Golokvin if he can make $2 million or more for that fight.

David Lemieux made $1.5 million in guaranteed money for the Golovkin fight last Saturday, and he likely made additional money from Canada. If Lee can get a guaranteed $1.5 million, then it might be worthwhile for him to take the Golokvin fight if he’s going to be getting some UK money as well in terms of PPV money.

Lee is Golovkin’s plan-B opponent if he can’t get the fight against the winner of the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Miguel Cotto fight. If Saunders beats Lee, then Golovkin will be out of luck though, because Saunders has already gone on record for saying he wants no part of fighting Golokvin.

“It’s clearly a great fight with Andy Lee and Billy Joe Saunders,” Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler said to espn.com. “We give Andy Lee a lot of credit. He is one of the top middleweights to agree to fight Gennady last year. If he comes out successful, there’s no reason to think he won’t agree to fight Gennady,” Loeffler said.