By Dan Ambrose: #2 WBC, #3 WBO, #5 IBF, #13 WBA middleweight contender David Lemieux (33-2, 31 KOs) is reportedly splitting with his promoter Yvon Michel. Lemieux doesn’t yet have a new promoter that he’s ready to sign with, but it’s likely whoever he chooses, they’ll be able to televise his fights on HBO.
Lemieux, 26, will need to be able to fight on HBO in the United States if he wants to be able to face the big names like Miguel Cotto, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin. Those are the guys that Lemieux is currently targeting in the 160 pound division.
“The fighters we aim for David to fight are against Gennady Golovkin, Saul Canelo Alvarez and Miguel Cotto,” Lemieux’s manager Camille Estephan said via rds.ca.
Lemieux is coming off of a 10th round stoppage win over Gabriel Rosado last December in a fight that was televised by Showtime from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The ratings for the fight was good, but it’s unknown whether it would have been better had it been televised on HBO with its larger subscriber base.
Lemieux is definitely going in the right direction if he’ll be looking to get a promoter that works with HBO. That should at least put him in the right direction to get fights against the likes of Canelo, Cotto and Golovkin. Right now, Lemieux probably needs at least one more solid victory to get a fight against Canelo or Cotto.
Golovkin would likely face him this year whether Lemieux fights again or not. It’s a natural fight for Golovkin and his management at K2 would probably jump at the chance to make a fight like that. However, it’s probably not a good fight for Lemieux to take if he’s serious about wanting to face Cotto and Canelo. Golovkin is not Rosado, as Lemieux would quickly find out. He does everything better than Lemieux does and it could be a real disaster for Lemieux if he takes that fight in 2015.
Lemieux has won his last eight fights since losing to Joachim Alcine and Marco Antonio Rubio in 2011. Some boxing fans feel that Lemieux has improved since then, but it’s really impossible to tell due to his opposition being so weak. Beating Rosado was a good victory, but Rosado had already been chopped down in the past by Golovkin and Alfredo Angulo, so it wasn’t that big of a deal that Lemieux was able to do the same thing.
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