BOXING:ANDY LEE'S career ambition of being crowned middleweight champion of the world was emphatically dismissed by Julio Cesar Chavez Jnr in El Paso, Texas on Saturday night.
The end came 2.21 into the seventh round when Chavez walked through the Limerick man’s best shots, trapping him in a corner. A ferocious left to the ribs was followed quickly by a left uppercut, snapping Lee’s head skywards, with the Mexican’s killer blow being a cracking right cross that stunned the 28-year-old challenger.
The WBC champion proceeded to rain down a flurry of blows until referee Laurence Cole intervened to confirm Lee’s second defeat from 30 professional bouts.
Chavez won all but one of the previous rounds despite an uncertain start, although Lee lacked the power to capitalise.
“I would have knocked him out earlier if it wasn’t for my legs,” said Chavez. “From the first round my legs were bothering me. It was cramps. That’s why I was standing up so straight. But I got the victory. I began by studying him. I saw he had nothing, and I dove in.”
Lee, trained by the legendary Emanuel Steward, had no complaints about the outcome.
“I couldn’t hold him off. He was too big and too strong.”
Now with a record of 46-0, Chavez immediately switched focus to a unification fight with Argentina’s Sergio Martinez.
The event took place under heightened security at the University of Texas Sun Bowl due to the rumoured presence of rival Mexican drug cartels. The fight was even temporarily cancelled last April, but went ahead without any problems from the 13,467 crowd.
But inside the ring there were plenty of unsolvable problems for Lee, and the result leaves his career at an unwanted crossroads.
Meanwhile, British super-bantamweights Scott Quigg and Rendall Munroe must put world title ambitions on hold as their interim WBA contest at Manchester Velodrome was ruled a technical draw.
The first two rounds of the highly-anticipated domestic contest bubbled under nicely before an accidental clash of heads at the start of the third left Leicester’s Munroe with a deep cut above his right eye.
Blood poured from the 32-year-old’s wound, leaving referee Howard Foster with little option but to end the contest early.
