Lee displays a bit of class

BOXING/Irish super-middleweight title fight:When Jason McKay arrived into the room above the bar at the National Stadium after his Irish super-middleweight title fight with Andy Lee late on Saturday night, the punishment he had taken was all too obvious. After a bloody six rounds where Lee kept the Irish light-heavyweight champion at bay with cutting jabs, before his corner said no more, McKay's face was a canvas of black, blue and red. Both eyes closed, stitches in his forehead from a clash, a discoloured left ear and swollen cheeks were all testament to Lee's stylish dominance.

McKay, who was brave and willing throughout, may well look on this fight as a humbling experience.

In contrast, the new champion, had three stitches in an eyelid from the clash of heads, but otherwise looked as he did when he stepped into the ring.

Lee's trainer, Emmanuel Steward, has been hyping his 22-year-old as the best middleweight in the world, and on the evidence of his six-round win over McKay, he is, John Duddy aside, clearly far and away the best super middleweight in Ireland.

Just where that puts him in world terms has yet to be seen, but once again Lee was controlled and patient, despite McKay's early provocations during the national anthem by beating his heart and looking at Lee in a reference to the assertion by McKay's trainer, John Breen, that Lee had little heart to go into the trenches.

As it happened, he had no need to, and again the Limerick fighter finished the deal before the seventh round. In his 14 professional fights he has never had to go beyond the sixth round. Eleven of them have finished inside the distance.

"I knew I could go through the rounds," said Lee. "I knew he wanted it as much as me. I knew he hadn't been hurt before, so I set him up behind my jab. I've learned from Wladimir (Klitschko, world heavyweight champion), the way he uses his jab. He's very disciplined."

About Steward's soaring praise, Lee was sanguine. His trainer has a job to do. The fighter has a job to do.

"They have never been my words. I'm just doing what I'm doing," said Lee. "If he thinks I'm ready, then I'm ready."

Already Lee has been lined up for another Irish bout, on February 2nd in a show to take place in the University of Limerick's 2,000-capacity basketball arena. That is the same night as his principal rival for middleweight dominance, Duddy, fights in Madison Square Garden on a Don King bill. The hope is that Lee can perform in Limerick in the first defence of his Irish title, with the Duddy fight screened afterwards from the US.

Soon after that, he goes back to the Garden for a February 23rd date.

"By the end of 2008, we will have a world title. There is no middleweight in the world who can beat Andy Lee," continued Steward, unabated. "He has all of the skills plus a great amateur background and that is very important."

Steward has taken Lee on from the beginning in the hope that he can, for the first time, take a promising fighter from amateur status and mould him into a world champion professional. He has trained 21 such champions, and has inculcated in Lee a mindset of not being frightened of reputations.

"When you see these guys on television you see them as big fighters, but when you see them in the flesh they are just other fighters like you and me," explained Lee.

For now he will be content. McKay was invited time and time again to come forward, Lee's right jab getting through with stunning regularity and his left coming round whenever he knew McKay was in range.

The sixth round, finally, was Lee choreographing his opponent's end. Rights and lefts rained in and, although McKay refused to go down, as he had in the second after shipping a right hook, his corner could see there was little point in continuing.

"He's a sharp boxer," admitted McKay. "Very intelligent, and doesn't miss too many - as you can see."

In the undercard fight for the vacant Irish bantamweight title, Belfast's Colin Moffett stopped Eugene Heagney in the eighth round to claim his first belt in 11 years as a professional. Standing toe to toe for the entire bout, Moffett finally got through 58 seconds into the eighth, referee David Irving stepping in to rule the Dublin-born Heagney was no longer able to defend himself.