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"Anywhere you go in the wo...

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"Anywhere you go in the world, everyone loves Andy Lee"

98FM
98FM

08:44 20 Feb 2018


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As Andy Lee retires after a sterling boxing career, the Limerick man was joined on the line by some of the people who have been close to him during his career. 

Trainer Adam Booth and Javan 'Sugar' Hill Steward, nephew of his legendary former coach Emanuel Steward joined us on the line to share their memories with Andy.  

Andy had spoken fondly of his time working with Steward and 'Sugar' paid tribute to the former world champion he worked and spent time with in and out of the ring. 

"Andy Lee was a guy loved by everybody," he said.

"Anywhere you go in the world, everyone loves Andy Lee"

00:00:00 / 00:00:00

"I remember the first day he came into the gym, as I heard you guys and Andy talking about his first time in the Kronk Gym and the first time sparring and getting the respect... the rough neighbourhood the gym was in and all the tough fighters that came out of that gym.

"When he walked in, he was considered fresh meat - that's what they called them when you walk into the gym at the start you're fresh meat and Andy had to prove himself.

"He showed a lot of character, Andy, and showed what type of character he was and that he was going to fight and that's what Emanuel liked."

And prove himself he did, leaving the Stewards with a glowing view of the fighter which they feel has spread like osmosis across the globe: "Everywhere you go, everybody loves Andy Lee."

Booth, his most recent trainer, also joined Andy on the show to share his thoughts. He admitted his initial view of Lee's abilities were not completely positive.

"It looked like there was quite a lot of work to do in terms of some subtleties to his movement and to his style and to stop him standing so upright and having had such a long amateur career and a lot of professional fights."

Watch tonight's Andy Lee special including those tributes and his announcement right below:

But it didn't take him long to be convinced that there was a potential (and what later turned out to be) a definite future world champion to work with.

"You only have to spend a bit of time with Andy. It was more than just a coach-boxer or a manager-boxer relationship. We became friends and good friends and we spent a lot of hours talking and just talking and listening to each other.

"And when you enjoy the company of someone, it becomes easy to spend more time with them and obviously spending more time with him was in the gym." 

He also discussed the tough route that took him towards a world title fight against Matt Korobov in 2014.


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