Andy Lee’s long and winding road to the top of the boxing world

Andy Lee and Adam Booth were in New York with Cork-Cuban heavyweight Mike Perez last July, but if feels much longer now, writes John Riordan.

That proved to be a far less fruitful crusade than the one which will culminate later today in Limerick, when Lee drapes the WBO Middleweight belt over his shoulder for a deserved champion’s homecoming.

Booth was in Perez’s corner that night at Madison Square Garden, having prepared the big man for a make-or-break bout with Philadelphia’s Bryant Jennings.

Lee had been helping out too at their London gym, and the Limerick man was himself in good form in the pre-fight build-up.

Having clawed his way back from the failed title bid to Julio Cesar Chavez Jr in Texas two summers prior, Lee was now riding high after June’s sensational New York knockout of John Jackson.

Many of the boxing media and promoters who were gathered at the Garden for the Gennady Golovkin fight — a co-feature along with Jennings/Perez — were keen to get a bit of face time with Lee, shaking his hand like they would an old friend and shooting the breeze about that punch. That’s a good fighter and a better man.

Everyone hoped for the same thing but who can ever know in the cruellest game there is. Where would the next opportunity come from?

The Lee renaissance is all about Booth, a clear-eyed trainer who provided the fighter with the right sort of refuge after the 2012 death of Emanuel Steward. The Detroit period was over and Lee knew he had one more shot at greatness.

“Next time I go for it, I want to make sure I do it right,” he wrote in May 2013 in the Irish Examiner after a low key Manhattan victory by knockout in the first round over Darryl Cunningham Jr.

That was a win achieved in spite of Booth’s absence who was reduced to keeping in touch that week by phone while trying to deal with the controversial postponement of a David Haye fight.

That Perez loss five months ago was another setback for the always exacting Booth. He wasn’t happy when I tried to get a few words from the crestfallen Perez after the defeat to Jennings. He was protecting his forlorn fighter and I was a nuisance.

I caught up with Lee outside on Seventh Avenue and we discussed the age-old dashed dreams of a heavyweight. The ongoing dreams of a middleweight hung there on the warm summer air. How many different ways can you ask about Matthew Macklin? I wished him luck with everything and headed downtown.

A lot of us lost track and I hold my hand up as being part of the problem which led to Lee’s win coming out of the blue for so many. I awaited Saturday night as a fan and will own up to some trepidation last week. I was one of those who wished him luck without sticking my neck out to truly believe. That’s a good fighter and a better man.

Booth rightly called people like me patronising in an interview with the Second Captains podcast on Monday. He had the edge on the whole lot of us, having planned it out meticulously, having spent day after day with his fighter, believing in him intensely, knowing Matt Korobov wouldn’t relish going beyond four rounds.

I was shocked at how it transpired and delighted to be wrong in my pre-fight worries. That right hook is world famous now and the almost comical half-second pause which preceded the flurry of fateful punches will be talked about for a while yet.

We’re all on the bandwagon now and that’s okay as long as we admit it. I’d rather be driving the bandwagon than find myself in Boston in January with a load of inflatable shamrocks watching Conor McGregor.

McGregor et al are deservedly stealing whatever is left of boxing’s dying flame. But thanks to Andy Lee, there’s an opportunity to make Ireland care a little about boxing again. He said it well himself… if the Irish public doesn’t show up to support his title defence — whether it takes place in Dublin or Limerick — that will be a truly damning indictment of where the sport is at.

I have my own glorious homecoming next week, back into the warm embrace of Cork and Blackrock, although sadly not with a world title.

Unfortunately, I’ll have just missed out on a nicely historic day for our club Manhattan Gaels. This Saturday afternoon in Dalkey, Co Dublin, the Gaels will bring New York City’s colours to the Cuala GAA club for a challenge game, our first on Irish soil.

Some great work has been done on both sides of the Atlantic to ensure this happens and the hosts have been particularly gracious in going along with the idea. Good luck to all.