Andy Lee turns pro.

Amz

Andy Lee has signed a five-year contract with legendary trainer Emanuel Steward.

More here.

Opinions?

Big Ears

excellant , Steward is a brilliant trainer and Lee has the potential to go a long way with Steward in his corner . I remember Lee being hard done by in the Olympics , he scored an equal amount of punches to the guy that he lost to and the other guy was having punches that were landing with the outside of the glove scored as points .

Irish Middleweights : Matthew Macklin , John Duddy , Jim Rock , Joe Rea , Andy Lee and all of those except Rock are young very good prospects .

Geiger

Can't say I've saw Lee fight before but it sounds good. It's a great time for Irish boxing.

akindoc

Lee is the kind of guy who will go the full 12 rounds against journeymen but win on points. I'm not really too excited about this because his style is pants.

Big Ears

akindoc wrote:

Lee is the kind of guy who will go the full 12 rounds against journeymen but win on points. I'm not really too excited about this because his style is pants.

People fight a lot differently in the pros in comparison to the amateurs , at least give him a chance before calling his style pants .

akindoc

Big Ears wrote:

People fight a lot differently in the pros in comparison to the amateurs , at least give him a chance before calling his style pants .

They don't really fight that differently.

efb

I really loved Lee as an amateur and it will be interesting to see how he adapts his style to the pro game. Excellant Computer Scoring amateur, will need to use more power in the pro game.

Still his replacement Sutherland is looking pretty damned impressive

mchurl

steward is a quality trainer and lee will improve greatly with him in charge of him.

GOAT_Ali

I don't think Lee really has the style to be a great pro, he lacks the most important thing and that's a damaging punch. I'm not saying KO punch, he just doesn't hit hard enough to be a threat in the pro game.....nor is he busy enough....

megadodge

I'm adopting a 'wait and see' approach.
My biggest worry is his durability.
I saw him knocked out with one left hook a number of years ago on a club show. The guy who knocked him out won the Intermediate heavy title just last week and is a good puncher, but they were aprox. the same weight at the time.

He has excellent boxing ability, he's tall, long reach, a southpaw and has decent power which will undoubtedly be worked on by Steward as he's very much a fan of aggression and power, but until he gets hit hard...

akindoc

megadodge wrote:

I'm adopting a 'wait and see' approach.
My biggest worry is his durability.
I saw him knocked out with one left hook a number of years ago on a club show. The guy who knocked him out won the Intermediate heavy title just last week and is a good puncher, but they were aprox. the same weight at the time.

He has excellent boxing ability, he's tall, long reach, a southpaw and has decent power which will undoubtedly be worked on by Steward as he's very much a fan of aggression and power, but until he gets hit hard...

Agreed, I mean, imagine Lee against Jermain Taylor? lol, or Winky... he'd be in hospital 10 minutes after stepping into the ring

Big Ears

Imagine Amir Kahn against Ricky Hatton or Floyd Mayweather , the same result as Lee against the two world class middleweights .

walshb

Big ears, what has Khan got to do with it. Khan is only 4 fights into his pro career and is 19yrs of age. Sure he's not going to beat those guys now but give him 3-4 yrs and then it would be a different story. Khan is in a different league to Lee....Khan has all the tools as a Lightweight or heavier to be a real threat in the pro game. Lee has not as far as I'm concerned. He was however a very competent amateur fighter and showed real class and spirit in Athens

Big Ears

walshb wrote:

Big ears, what has Khan got to do with it. Khan is only 4 fights into his pro career and is 19yrs of age. Sure he's not going to beat those guys now but give him 3-4 yrs and then it would be a different story. Khan is in a different league to Lee....Khan has all the tools as a Lightweight or heavier to be a real threat in the pro game. Lee has not as far as I'm concerned. He was however a very competent amateur fighter and showed real class and spirit in Athens

I was just pointing out that any early prospect (no matter how good) would be battered by the world champions in their weight class , saying what would happen to Lee if he faught Taylor know is stupid , it would be similer to what would have happened to Taylor had he faught Hopkins straight when he turned pro .

Big Ears

Andy Lee won his debut against Anthony Cannon (1-0-0 before the fight) .
He won a UD over 6 rounds with score of 60-51 | 60-51 | 60-54 from the three judges .

It's very impressive that Lee started his career with a 6 rounder , and that he won by shutout (yes his opponent was most likely crap) .

According to last weeks Boxing News Lee had earned the highest signing on fee of any fighter from the last Olympics , even more than Andre Ward and Amir Kahn . He is also receiving a $3,000 a month living expenses fee . This is all from trainer Emannuel Steward who seems to have a huge amount of fate in Lee .

The Wicker Man

With regards to Andy Lee's punching power (or lack of it) lets not forget that as an amateur,Tommy Hearns was not a big puncher, but as a pro was turned into a murderous hitter under Steward's tutelage.

Big Ears

Good News everyone , Andy Lee's next fight is on the undercard of W.Klitschko V C.Byrd :http://www.boxrec.com/date_search.php?yyyy=2006&mm=04&dd=22

This will not only give him great experience but also great exposure .

Steward was asked to sum up Andy's debut in one word , he replied 'perfect' .
Lee scored one knockdown and forced two standing counts(fight was in Michigan) in the fight . He said if it wasn't for the standing counts he believes he would have finnished his opponent .

Steward seems to be putting a huge amount of time and money into Lee , it seems he thinks he can go all the way.............and Steward usually isn't a bad judge of people .