AMERICA AT LARGE:He challenged my manhood, and I wasn't mature enough to know how to respond. All I could think about was retaliating.

The speaker was not, as you might have supposed, Andy Lee ruminating on last weekend's loss to Brian Vera, but Ray Leonard, reflecting on his 1980 loss to Roberto Duran.

Sugar Ray, it might be noted, didn't lose another fight for almost 11 years - a span that included victories over Duran in two subsequent rematches.

Over the five days that have elapsed since Lee's upset loss to the 2 to 1 underdog Vera, America's boxing pundits seem to have divided into two camps - those who view the shocking events that unfolded on the Mohegan reservation in Connecticut as representing confirmation that the Limerick middleweight was an overpublicised paper tiger, and those holding out hope that the result may turn out to be but a bump on the road to the eventual stardom that has been predicted for Lee since he joined the professional ranks in the US two years ago.

The two views are by no means mutually exclusive.

While a few scribes who have spent the past two years elbowing one another out of the way in their eagerness to leap off the John Duddy bandwagon have now turned their dismissive scorn upon Lee and what they view as some sort of conspiratorial Hibernian hype machine, two of the more seasoned and respected pugilistic chroniclers weighed in over the past few days with what would seem to be a more balanced assessment.

"No need piling on, but you never heard it wherever I've been that Andy Lee was the next great middleweight. He might still be - he does have a lot of talent and I would make him a strong favourite to stop Vera in their July rematch," Michael (Wolf Man) Katz, the dean of American boxing scribes, opined in a column for Maxboxing.com yesterday.

"Meanwhile, let's not believe the hype, especially when it comes from Emanuel Steward and is fanned by Dandy Dan (Rafael, of ESPN.com, who had been an enthusiastic Lee booster)."

Earlier this week, Larry Merchant, the long-time sportswriter who has covered boxing for HBO for the past 30 years, told Michael Woods of TheSweetScience.com "I think there was a sense of over-expectation, from others and himself. People were expecting Superman."

But, said Merchant, Lee "showed toughness, took hard shots, and was punching back when it was stopped. I won't dismiss someone of that character."

Most everyone, including Andy himself, agrees Lee was undone by allowing himself to be drawn into a slugfest that was to his opponent's advantage.

"I've always prided myself in having a boxer's head, but I've also got a fighter's heart," said Lee.

"I got swept away and allowed myself to be drawn into a brawl. I suppose it was some kind of macho thing, and I paid the price."

"(Lee) showed courage in continuing to try and fight while seriously hurt, but I didn't like the way he was so easily hurt by a not-particularly-ferocious opponent," said Katz.

That Vera was unexpectedly strong may have reflected the three-and-a-half-pound weight disparity. In retrospect, Lee's camp might have been better advised to have insisted on a hard-and-fast 160-pound contractual limit. The contract for the Mohegan fight allowed for a two-pound differential, and Vera, who had campaigned exclusively as a super-middleweight over the past two years, used every bit of the available elasticity, coming in at 162 pounds for what was supposed to be a middleweight bout, while Lee weighed 158¾, the lightest of his pro career.

"I don't know whether the weight made a difference, but he was much stronger than I'd expected," mused Lee. "I got him with a lot of clean shots, but I couldn't hold him off. He just kept coming forward."

"He found out that no matter how hard you hit some guys they will keep coming," said Merchant. "Maybe he thought he'd walk right trough Vera, but Vera can take a shot, and that's part of the equation at this level. He showed a little craft, and patience. I think Lee became overaggressive and hit a wall."

Caught with a big right hand early in the critical round, Lee seemed all but defenceless as he absorbed considerable punishment over the first two minutes of the seventh, but the timing of Tony Chiarantano's stoppage - the referee intervened just as Lee returned fire for the first time since the round began - injected an element of controversy into the proceedings, particularly since Lee held a commanding lead on the official scorecards. (Judges Glenn Feldman and Frank Lombardi had Lee up 58-55, while the third scoring official, Dr Clark Sammartino, had the Irishman ahead 59-55.)

"Yes, for those who want to argue that the stoppage was premature, Lee was still punching," pointed out Katz, "But his punches had nothing on them. He was spent, and he might only have been more seriously hurt if the bout had been allowed to continue. It was a fine stoppage."

Had it been, say, a title fight instead of an ESPN2 main event, the pertinent sanctioning body might well have ordered a rematch by now.

While Lee and Steward find themselves desperately craving the opportunity for redemption, it is by no means certain an immediate return bout is on the cards. Even as Lee was on his way to a Connecticut hospital last Friday night, promoter Lisa Elovich gleefully told ringside reporters both fighters' managers had agreed to a July 25th rematch in Saratoga Springs.

Vera, however, remains under contract to The Contender, and his bouts must be approved by , Jeffrey Wald, the titular promoter of the TV reality programme. If Wald envisions a rematch with anybody in the Texan's future, it is more likely with Jaidon Codrington, the author of Vera's lone defeat, not a second Lee fight from which Vera would have little to gain and much to lose.

Where, then, does Andy Lee go from here?

"Everybody has those nights - hockey players, baseball players, race-car drivers," Steward told the Detroit Free Press this week.

"Muhammad Ali lost to Ken Norton and Leon Spinks and came back to beat both of them. Andy will return as a great, seasoned fighter, not just a solid prospect."

"I don't think it (the loss) will be fatal," agreed Merchant.

"It may be a loss that turns out to be a win for him. Don't dismiss him."

For openers, there will be the automatic 30-day suspension meted out to knockout victims, an interval that should give his physical damage ample time to heal.

Any residual psychic damage is more difficult to gauge, but almost everyone - anyone not named Emanuel Steward, anyway - probably agrees at this point that Steward's freely voiced projections of a 2008 world championship placed inordinate pressure on a 23-year-old who should, by rights, still be learning his craft.

If nothing else, the unfortunate events of last Friday night should relieve that pressure and allow Lee to proceed at a more reasonable pace.