By Matt Richardson at ringside

Former WBO middleweight title-holder Andy Lee made a triumphant return to the ring after a 15 month lay-off – and remained in the running for a potential fight against Gennady Golovkin – by winning an eight-round unanimous decision against KeAndrae Leatherwood. Lee gave a workman like performance, doing just enough to win the rounds but never enough to threaten a knockout. One judge scored the fight a shut-out, 80-72 while the other two submitted scores of 79-73 and 78-74.

Neither fighter seemed particularly eager to engage the other, although Leatherwood did connect with a few straight rights toward the end of the second round. Lee found success with sporadic straight lefts throughout but the effective punching was rare as both men spent significant chunks of time sizing up their opponent. Lee is now 35-3-1 with 24 KO’s. Leatherwood is 19-4-1 with 12 KO’s.

Lee was coming off a December 2015 title loss to Billy Joe Saunders. Saunders, meantime, is the likely opponent for Golovkin should “GGG” take a homecoming fight in Kazakhstan in June.

Matt McKinney upset Jay Carrigan-McFarlane in a clash of beefy heavyweights. McKinney won a four-round majority decision by scores of 39-37 (twice) and 38-38. Carrigan-McFarlane, who hails from Glasgow, Scotland appeared to be soft around the middle and didn’t fight with the urgency required to actually win the bout. He fought sloppy, winged a lot of punches and often left himself open for crisp counterpunches. He’s now 2-1 with 2 KO’s; McKinney is 4-2-2 with one win via knockout.

Ukrainian welterweight Serhii Bohachuk defeated Yasmani Pedroso in the first fight of the evening via third round technical knockout. Bohachuck (3-0, 3 KO’s) dominated the first three rounds. Pedroso was bleeding from the nose by the end of the second and was down once in the third before a wide left hook knocked him to the canvas again. The second knockdown prompted referee Ron Lipton to promptly call a halt without issuing a count. There were 32 seconds left in the round. With the loss, Pedroso dropped to 1-2 with one win inside the distance.