Few sports can mirror the mire of politics quite like boxing, the dog-eat-dog nature of its landscape a minefield for many.
Those who manage to stay the course unscathed are rare enough. Those who emerge better for the journey are rarer still.
Andy Lee falls somewhere along the latter bracket, the esteem in which he’s held by fight fans matched only by his popularity among peers.
It’s a reputation built as much beyond the ropes as between them, his affable demeanour the perfect complement to a high-octane career.
2014’s world title win put him squarely in the eye of that perfect storm, a torrential TKO of Matt Korobov pedestaling the Irish middleweight atop boxing’s most storied division.
It was surely a signature moment on an already rollercoaster résumé, yet Lee’s had always been a lofty trajectory.
2004 saw him single-handedly fly the flag for Ireland’s fighting fraternity, his solo run in Athens sparking something of an amateur boxing boom thereafter.
Although the National Sports Council had been eager to secure his services through to the Beijing games, by then Lee was set on joining the professional ranks of Detroit’s renowned Kronk Gym.
In truth, the opportunity to ply his trade under the tutelage of hall-of-fame cornerman Emanuel Steward was one he was never likely to turn down.
Having shaped 41 different champions during his time in the game, Steward’s early musings about Lee suggested he had every faith that number 42 had just arrived. “He’s my Irish Tommy Hearns”, said the legendary trainer about his newest recruit; high praise indeed.
At six foot plus change, and with a reach of 75 inches, Lee certainly had the dimensions. For those outside of Detroit, however, comparisons between the pair began and ended there.
But after 12 knockout wins in his first 15 contests, the notion that this young upstart could go some way to rivalling The Hitman’s exploits was gaining a little more traction.
As early as 2008, Lee found himself firmly in the sweepstakes for a future match-up with then middleweight kingpin, Kelly Pavlik. His fight with Brian Vera in March of that year was mooted merely as a stepping stone to that end.
As it turned out, the rugged Texan had designs of his own.
In spite of touching down in round one and falling behind on the scorecards, Vera belatedly rallied to force a stoppage in the seventh. Contentious though it may have been, the loss nonetheless ground any talk of world honours into neutral.
For the next three years Lee’s career amounted to a whistle-stop tour of Europe and mainland America as he sought to restore his stock. He would rack up eight consecutive wins during that period, but it wasn’t until he scored a TKO win over unbeaten contender Craig McEwan in March 2011 that he truly came of age.
By year’s end, Lee had not only avenged his defeat to Vera with a conclusive points win but also secured a maiden title shot for the summer of 2012.
Despite this time entering as a heavy underdog against El Paso’s hometown favourite Julio Cesar Chavez, the pattern of the fight would in many ways mirror that of his first clash with Vera. Lee again raced into the lead on all cards before ultimately being stopped on his feet in round seven.
While that defeat marked another setback in his pursuit of 160-pound supremacy, it would be a loss of an altogether different nature which would truly halt him in his tracks. Four months on from that night in Texas, Emanuel Steward passed away aged 68.
The bereavement would leave Lee at something of a loose end both personally and professionally, and though he eventually opted to return home to resume his boxing career, he did not fight again until the following year.
Adam Booth, formerly of David Haye and George Groves fame, was the man charged with assuming Steward’s baton.
If their first four fights together were Lee’s attempt at telling the boxing world he was back in the mix, the next was an exclamation point.
Having initially struggled to get to grips with budding knockout artist John Jackson, he well and truly arrested the 25-year-old’s development with a highlight-reel right hand in the fifth.
The showcase win would once more vault Lee into the conversation for a title challenge, and when incumbent belt-holder Peter Quillin elected to vacate, the WBO settled on Lee as one of two potential suitors to their throne.
The elite amateur pedigree of Korobov had been presumed to segue seamlessly to the pro-ranks, successive gold medal performances at the World Championships meaning the Russian switched codes as a man who would be king.
It was Lee, of course, who seized the crown in Las Vegas, a sixth-round hailstorm of right hands securing his place in boxing lore.
A Limerick homecoming was slated for the following September, Thomond Park a fitting venue for his mandatory defence against Billy Joe Saunders.
Unforeseen circumstances ultimately put paid to those best-laid plans, however, the bout moved to a December 2015 date in Manchester.
Such was the razor-thin nature of the contest that neither man would likely have left the ring feeling a justifiable loser, two errant knockdowns incurred by the champion proving enough to turn the tide in the Briton’s favour.
Warranted though a rematch may have been, the fact that Lee was limited to just one fight in the subsequent 26 months began to frame it as less a comma than a full stop.
An already seamless switch to media will see him now very much a staple of this parish going forward, the former champion having joined team Off The Ball late last year.
Much like Manny Steward, however, his nascent steps into coaching suggest his insight won’t be limited solely to the broadcast booth.
After a storybook boxing career, so begins the next chapter.
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