Andy Lee planning to retire next year

Andy Lee [34(24)-3(2)-1] admits that he is in the Autumn of his career, but he stresses that he feels capable of a world title-winning Indian Summer.

The Limerick middleweight makes his return, 15 months on after losing his WBO title to Billy Joe Saunders, in New York on March 18th.

Here he will box at the Madison Square Garden Arena on the Gennady Golovkin v Danny Jacobs WBC/WBA/IBF middleweight title undercard.

His opponent next month will be unheralded Alabama fighter KeAndrae Leatherwood [19(12)-3(2)-1] who looks set to be one of the last of Lee’s career. However, the Castleconnell southpaw is planning on using the eight round bout to catapult himself into one final big fight to round off his time in the ring.

Speaking on Newstalk 106FM’s Off The Ball, Lee explained that “to be brutally honest, I only want to fight for another year, maybe 16 months. I can’t see myself going too far beyond that.”

The Adam Booth-trained fighter doesn’t plan on going quietly into the night, and declared that “I want the big fights and I’m ready to fight the winner of the main event in the next fight or the fight after that.”

“This is the first step. I’ll get active again, I’ll move myself up in the rankings. KeAndrae Leatherwood is a good fighter, a serious opponent. I know I’m in for a hard fight. But this fight will get me active again and then push on and put myself back in the frame for fighting those guys.”

Lee-Leatherwood is the final part of the non-PPV broadcast next month on an undercard that also includes WBC super flyweight king Roman Gonzalez.

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Joe O’Neill and Gavan Casey are joined by Eric Donovan for Episode 2 of The Irish Boxing Show