By Carlos Boogs
Two weeks ago at Madison Square Garden in New York City, former middleweight world champion Andy Lee returned to the ring and picked up a decision win on the Gennady Golovkin vs. Daniel Jacobs undercard.
It was Lee's first fight since losing his WBO middleweight crown to Billy Joe Saunders in December of 2015.
Lee made a recent appearance on Newstalk's Off the Ball. Among the topics discussed was Katie Taylor's fourth professional fight. During that discussion, Lee took aim at what he feels is biased commentary during the Sky Sports broadcasts.
Lee is having a very hard time watching the boxing events being televised on Sky Sports, because he believes the commentary crew are extremely one-sided in favor of their network fighters - and almost all of those fighters are promoted by Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport.
"The people who go to these fights in England, they're not boxing fans, they are Sky Sports promotional fans. They just go to event; event fans. Half of them wouldn't know what they are watching. That's why the Sky commentary, to me, has been so damaging," Lee said.
"[The Sky Sports commentary team] are so biased toward the home fighters, and every time you watch a Sky boxing show, they call the fight wrong. Because they are so biased toward the home fighters, to their guys. They got one wrong again last [weekend], they do it all the time. I think Tony Bellew, in his unpolished way, says a lot of the right things. But the rest of them are singing from the same hymn sheet."
Lee was also shocked at what many felt was extreme trash talk between David Haye and Tony Bellew to promote their Sky Box Office Pay-Per-View, which took place earlier this month. The boxers took their war of words to new levels with all sorts of threats and vulgar language flying around during most of the promotion.
"I think we've reached peak trash talk. The Haye/Bellew stuff was unlike anything we'd seen before...it was an insult to the sport. And the fight itself was a farce," Lee said.
"I've never engaged in any of the trash talk. I never have [come under pressure to do so]. Say with my fight with Billy Joe Saunders, it probably would have helped the fight, and it probably would have helped me, if he had said something. But we were just so respectful of one another. It has to come across as natural, as organic. When it's not real, everyone can see through it."
