Review by AllTheBestFights.com: 2015-12-19, some good exchanges in the first part of the bout but the rest of the fight was not so entertaining: Andy Lee vs Billy Joe Saunders it gets two stars.Andy Lee entered this fight with a pro boxing record of 34-2-1 (24 knockouts) and he is ranked as the No.4 middleweight in the world (currently the #1 in this division is Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez). He suffered his last loss in 2012 when he faced Julio Cesar Chavez Jr (=Chavez Jr vs Lee), since then he has collected six victories (winning the vacant Wbo title against Matt Korobov, Korobov vs Lee) but then he drew with Peter Quillin in his last bout (=Lee vs Quillin).
His opponent, the undefeated Billy Joe Saunders, has a perfect record of 22-0-0 (12 knockouts) and he entered as the No.16 in the same weight class. He won over Chris Eubank Jr (=Saunders vs Eubank Jr) and Yoann Bloyer in his last two fights (=Saunders vs Bloyer). Lee vs Saunders is valid for the WBO World middleweight title (Lee’s first defense). Watch the video and rate this fight!
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Date: 2015-12-19
Where: Manchester Arena, Manchester, United Kingdom
Division: middleweight (160 lbs, 72.6 kg)
Title: WBO World middleweight title
Lee’s previous fight: Andy Lee vs Peter Quillin
Saunders’ previous fight: Billy Joe Saunders vs Yoann Bloyer
Saunders’ next fight: Billy Joe Saunders vs Artur Akavov
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Video: (Free embeddable video hosted on Youtube and not uploaded by AllTheBestFights, to report it please visit this link where the video is hosted)
I didn’t know both, but they are barred. Awfully boring fight. I started the fight by scoring it, Saunders had a huge lead after the seventh, but I decided I had better things to do at that point. I don’t even care who won lol. Oh it’s Saunders.
You’re going in there for a World Championship and to keep an undefeated record and you produce this???
Terrible style matchup, wasn’t it. And a serious lack of alacrity on the champion’s part after suffering two knockdowns. Zzzzzz.
Yes, a 2 knockdown fights I rate 1 star. You were a good man rating it 2. Awful commentators also, they were talking like it was exciting. It’s their job, but they could be a little more honest, that would help the credibility along :)
You’re right, Matt. “A sense that Andy Lee is finally getting into his rhythm now!” etc. Good lord: let me have a hit off my oxygen tank so I can handle the excitement.
Simply laughable cheerleading, like HBO when it’s doing everything short of singing hosannas to its house fighters on a boring night. (I swear they used to turn the volume up on Jim Lampley so fans couldn’t hear themselves snoring during a Bernard Hopkins fight. Man, I miss Larry Merchant, curmudgeon extraordinaire, drily saying, “Wake me when it’s over.”)
I think Saunders is good, highly skilled, very intelligent, but he wanted the win at the cost of super cautiousness. His prerogative, of course, but I should have done my laundry instead. Now I’m frustrated AND my socks still stink.
B-Hop would indeed have been proud. It ain’t pretty. It ain’t exciting. But two impressive wins over undefeated prospects Chris Eubank Jr and Gary O’Sullivan – plus the stifling of a known power-hitter in Andy Lee – tell us Saunders is indeed every bit the good, highly-skilled (like B-Hop he judges distance superbly), intelligent, yet cautious, fighter you opine on him as.
Not as electrifying as the impressive Danny Jacobs against Quillin the other weekend – but then a boxer like Saunders would never have gotten himself starched by a guy like Dmitry Pirog (as Saunders did).
He’s never going to sell tickets outside of his own (Brits and travellers).
But he just may be the best of the rest.
Kudos Arjay. (sock-less is the way).
Andy Lee overrated!!!! Saunders is a good boxer and very smart but I think he can’t do anything against Golovkin (the real king among middleweights) or Saul Canelo Alvarez or Daniel Jacobs….but I think he would lose also against Lemieux and N’Dam N’Jikam…..
I doubt anybody can do anything against Golovkin – and Canelo (if he would damn well man up to 160) has always looked the clear number 2 in the division for me.
But Billy Joe Saunders is far too clever to go and get himself starched by a fighter as limited as Dmitry Pirog – as the less sturdy, less risk-averse Daniel Jacobs did (Saunders also stopped a fresher Jarrod Fletcher three rounds quicker than Jacobs recently did).
Billy Joe simply too clever and too cunning for Jacobs. And he would be far too cautious and versatile for the one-dimensional
Lemieux.
* And Lee is overrated. But then so too was the limited Quillin.
Cheers, Barley, and fair play to you for praising Saunders in the Jacobs comparison. Billy Joe is too smart to be suckered.
I think he still schools Eubank Jr. Would you agree?
And speaking of his appeal, I have enjoyed the traveller’s sly banter with Kugan Cassius in iFL TV videos. It’s a key to the boxer’s mind: a clever gifted fellow, keen-eyed, though at this stage just not very exciting to watch. Maybe if he’s pressed by a charging Canelo we’ll see something new and interesting from him.
Canelo-Saunders and Jacobs-Eubank Jr would both do fine by me (I would love US TV to show some of those really hard, raw, cutting edge documentries (do they use ‘documentary” in the US ?) – so American viewers could really get an idea of just how very different semi-feral (no racism intented) travellers/gypsies are from the rest of us Brits – and just how much masculine identity and long lost (to the rest of us) so-called ‘manly’ values (sometimes dubious) are at the very centre of all they do and believe in.
I’ve got to see one of those docs. Do any titles leap to mind?
Yeah, one of the many featuring a certain ‘Paddy Docherty’ – a former bare-knuckle traveller fighter who looks like a 50 year old Calzaghe (facially), has a wicked sense of humour, rules his ‘clan’ with both plenty of jokes and a rod of iron – and who broached the hitherto closed ‘them and us’ divide between travellers and the rest of us to such an extent that he won Celebrity Big Brother (a couple of years before Evander went in).
Whether regailing the TV producers with endless anicdotes, ‘refereeing’ (Lol) brutal bare-knuckle bouts in fields and on wasteland – or being dragged round the shops moaning ‘this isn’t man’s work’ by his charming, but tough-as-nails wife – the numerous documentary’s involving Docherty and his unruly traveller’s clan have shown another side to much-maligned travellers.
As such they are a real eye-opener (his son only has half an ear after it was bitten off in a ‘all-in’ fight) to a frequently despised semi-feral people who have lived alongside us, while never remotely part of us, for several hundred years.
I’m sure US TV – as with the far lighter-hearted ‘My Big Fat gypsy’ series – will show one of these fascinating documentries soon.
Cheers, Barley, for the tip and very enjoyable description. It sounds fascinating and, if appalling, also honest.
I’ll seek it out — reckon it’ll turn up somewhere.
Speaking of a rough and tumble upbringing: did you see Saunders’ young boy at the end of that iFL TV post-fight video, there in the locker room running through combinations on the mitts? Lad can’t be more than five years old and threw better than many fighters on the Haymon payroll.
Lol. I didn’t actually. But doesn’t surprise me.
Two southpaws fighting often ends up in stinkers & it did here. The blame is more on Lee for me. Saunders knew he was way ahead after the knockdowns & just decided to box to the finish line. Why didn’t Lee go all out in the final few rounds? Surely he realized he was way behind.
Exactly it was painfully boring I nodded of can’t belive I woke up at the right time to hear the decision. Like u said hopefully eubank jr puts this nuisance away, produced jack!
LOL Matts 6th round for me now and I hit the Results tab as i dont wont to watch the rest.
So the winner might fight Eubank Jr.
Who Saunders has beat already.
Enough of this …
I had to restrain myself! So boring. Ortiz vs Jennings coming up if you are in North America, if you’re in Europe it might be awfully late :) I hope the show will be better but it won’t be hard to beat lol.
I thought it was a good technical fight. Saunders decided to stay behind the jab after dropping Lee twice early on otherwise i think his gameplan would have been different. Lee should have pushed the fight more after that but I think he was hurt and worried about getting Kod or knocked down again. **THANK YOU AS USUAL ALL THE BEST FIGHTS FOR POSTING!!*
No need to insist on how boring this fight was, you said it all already guys. Just wanted to underscore the good sportsmanship displayed by BJS on the second KD when Lee’s glove touched the canevas… How many fighters out there would have give the extra punch at that moment? And doing so would have probably closed the show (well.. it that regard it would have been a good thing ’cause nothing happened really after that)… I remember, just a few weeks ago, the same thing happened when Golovkin sent Lemieux down (for the second time I think it was) in a similar fashion, he threw that extra punch and the referee didn’t care much.
BjS wont get nowhere with that win. it is either a rematch or a big beat-down by GGG.
Nice to watch two southpaw fighting but they were too cautious for my taste. This fight looks like more as a chess game than a boxing match, just pure strategic with few punches and both boxers speculating who will do the first mistake. Just round 3 was the good one and of course the easy one to score. All the other rounds quite boring with results that could go either way because were difficult to score. Therefore, i’m not sure that Billy deserves to be the winner. However, I recognize that Billy is a good boxer and much faster than Lee but after the 3 round he didn’t push at all the actions to win the fight. I liked very much the attitude of Lee congratulating Billy after the third round for the knock downs he was able to put in the fight. Two starts is the right qualification for a fight such slow.