David Lemieux: N’Dam can run but he can’t hide. I’ll catch him

By Boxing News - 02/17/2015 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: #5 IBF David Lemieux (33-2, 31 KOs) recently agreed to face #1 IBF Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam (31-1, 18 KOs) for the vacant IBF middleweight title that was stripped from champion Jermain Taylor.

Lemieux rightly knows that he’s likely going to need to chase down the 30-year-old N’Dam if he wants to get a chance of knocking him out. Their fight is being talked about as potentially taking place in April, although it could drag out to May or June.

“Let’s do it! The fight is on. N’Dam, you can run but I’ll catch you,” Lemieux said on his twitter. “N’Dam, huh? That should be fun.”

Lemieux is a fighter who has beaten in the past by Marco Antonio Rubio and Joachim Alcine, but he does well against fighters that don’t have much in the way of punching power.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdZ_dPZ4Saw

You have to agree that N’Dam is not a puncher. He’s a guy with fast hands, but he mostly slaps with his shots, and he doesn’t have the kind of arsenal that would worry Lemieux.

In N’Dam’s defeat at the hands of Peter Quillin in 2012, N’Dam was knocked down six times in the fight. He just couldn’t handle Quillin’s punching power. N’Dam did well in between the knock downs though, but each time he was hit hard, he was dropped to the canvas.

Lemieux is the type of fighter who is willing to take some shots in order to deliver his own. For this reason, he could finish off N’Dam if he gets him hurt and puts him on the canvas.

Quillin should have been able to score a knockout over N’Dam in 2012, but Quillin wasn’t willing to put his own chin on the line in order to finish off N’Dam. He was there to be knocked out in that fight, but Quillin just didn’t have the determination to take a few slapping shots in order to finish N’Dam off.

For Lemieux to win, he’s probably going to need to be able to knock N’Dam off, because he doesn’t have the same boxing skills as the Cameroon born fighter, so the chances of him winning a 12 round decision won’t be that good unless he knocks him down 3 to 4 times in the fight.

If N’Dam is able to stay on his feet for the entire 12 round fight, he’s going to give Lemieux a lot of problem. Lemieux tends to fade late in his fights, and that’ll be a problem for him if N’Dam is able to pound on him the way Alcine did late in their fight.

If Lemieux is able to beat N’Dam for the vacant IBF title, Golden Boy Promotions, the promoters for Lemieux, will very likely quickly setup a fight between him and their flagship fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in 2015. It’s a fight that Golden Boy president Oscar De La Hoya would likely be eager to make because Canelo does well against sluggers like Lemieux, but he struggles against boxers like Floyd Mayweather Jr, Erislandy Lara and Austin Trout.

Lemieux would also have a chance of fighting a unification bout against WBA champion Gennady Golovkin, although that’s not a fight that De La Hoya will be eager to make.

De La Hoya will probably be looking to have Lemieux either face Canelo or have him milk his title. If he puts him in with Golovkin, Lemieux will almost surely get obliterated in six rounds or less.



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