Andy Lee is painfully honest on what defeat this weekend could spell for his career

A pivotal moment in his career.

Andy Lee begins his march towards one more shot at a world title with this weekend's bout against American, KeAndrae Leatherwood, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. This will be Lee's first fight since he lost his WBO world middleweight title against Billy Joe Saunders at the Manchester Arena in December 2015. Lee was on the wrong end of a majority decision from the judges but he has admitted since that his performance that day was not up to his usual high standards. The Limerick man took a well-earned absence from the sport over the following months but has since been back in training with the aim of achieving one more shot at a world title. Lee is under no illusions when it comes to the consequences of what a loss on Saturday night could mean for him.

”Defeat will be the end - especially defeat to someone of the calibre of Leatherwood, who is not highly rated at world level. This is my last run at it – I’ve done all that I wanted to do,”  Lee told The Limerick Leader.

Lee is fighting on the undercard of the much-anticipated clash between Gennady Golovkin and Daniel Jacobs with the Kazakh putting his WBC, IBF, IBO world middleweight and WBA super middleweight titles on the line. Lee is honoured to be performing on such a card and he says that it for experiences like these which are the reasons why he is still boxing.

"I was just thinking and appreciating how lucky I am to be here in New York and fighting on such a card – 95% of fighters never get this platform."

For Lee, he knows that a win against Leatherwood will put him back in the mix for potential opponents of the winner of the night's main event.

”I’m still one of the leading middleweights in the world and in the top 10 rankings. A win on Saturday will put me back on the registrar for for the possibility of a big big fight."

Lee has already achieved what few Irish fighters have done in their professional careers but the desire to achieve further history is plain to see in the Limerick man's psyche.