17.03.07 – By Scott Frake: Middleweight sensation Andy Lee (8-0, 5 KO’s) demolished ring veteran Carl Daniels (49-11-1, 31 KO’s), stopping him in the 3rd round of a scheduled six-round bout at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The bout was one-sided from the beginning for the southpaw Lee, 22, using his superior height and reach to control the action from the outside, working his jab and right hook to perfection to tattoo Daniel’s face. Try as he might, the 5’9” Daniels seldom landed during the bout, except on a few occasions when he was able to catch Lee, when he was coming in with a hook to the body. In the first two rounds, Lee mainly used his jab and right hook combination to keep Daniels off balance..
In the 3rd, and what would be the final round of the fight, Lee punished Daniels at will, tagging him with multiple combinations and driving him backwards. In fact, Daniels only landed one punch in the round, being so busy receiving punches from Lee.
For Daniels, who previous to this fight had lost six consecutive fights, the end came suddenly when Lee threw a short right jab, stepped back, planting his feet and then throwing a huge right hook that crashed into the side of Daniels face, sending him falling backwards to the canvas, where he crashed with a loud thud, his head bouncing painfully off the canvas. What made it even worse, however, was the fact that as Daniels fell backwards, his arms were crossed in front of him at the chest level, like a mummy, and he did nothing to brace himself as he went sailing down to the hard canvas. He lay for a couple of minutes after, clearly badly hurt. The referee never bothered to count, immediately coming to Daniels assistance.
The knockout was picture perfect, in fact, for just after landing the punch, Lee immediately started walking away with his arm stretched into the air, as Daniels slowly fell straight backwards to the canvas. The 36-year-old Daniels, who at one time in 1995 was the WBA light middleweight champion, really never had much of a chance against Lee, as he looked ring warn and out of his class despite his more vast experience.
“He was picking up my jab well, so I made it short and then cracked him with a hook,” Lee said afterwards, referring to his knockout punch.
Lee, a former Irish Olympic amateur, is trained by Emanuel Steward, and fights in a style that is surprisingly similar to Wladimir Klitschko, whom he often spars with while Wladimir is in training.