By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions won Tuesday’s purse bid for the Hassan N’Dam (31-1, 18 KOs) vs. David Lemieux (33-2, 31 KOs) fight. Golden Boy put in the winning bid of $102,000, which just happened to be the only bid that took place at the International Boxing Federation headquarters, according to Fight News.
Lemieux and N’Dam will be fighting for the vacant IBF middleweight title that was previously held by Jermain Taylor. The purse for the Lemieux-N’Dam will be split in half for each fighter to get 50 percent.
Lemieux, #4 IBF, was previously going in another direction towards the WBC title to try and get a shot at Miguel Cotto’s WBC strap. But when the IBF 160 pound title became open after Taylor ran into legal problems, Lemieux opted to change paths to fight the 31-year-old #1 IBF N’Dam for the vacant IBF title.
This is going to be a much different opponent for Lemieux compared to the guys he’s faced before. N’Dam is more a boxer rather than a slugger, and he’s got excellent hand speed and mobility. Lemieux has been facing largely sluggers with less than spectacular talent during most of his eight year pro career.
N’Dam is a much different type of fighter than the guys that Lemieux has been facing, and that’s going to make things potentially difficult for Lemieux unless he can trap N’Dam to bang him out. Peter Quillin dropped N’Dam six times in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision in their fight in 2012. In between all the knockdowns, N’Dam was very competitive with Quillin and he gave some problems before losing the fight by a 12 round decision.
The winner of the Lemieux vs. N’Dam will be in a good position to hold onto the IBF belt for a long time as long as they don’t look to fight a unification match against the other 160 pound champions. The IBF doesn’t have any formidable contenders ranked in their top 15. Below are the IBF’s top 15 contenders.
1. Hassan N’Dam
2. Not rated
3. Billy Joe Saunders
4. David Lemieux
5. Sam Soliman
6. Sergio Mora
7. Eamonn O’Kane
8. Daniel Geale
9. Curtis Stevens
10. Adam Etches
11. Tureano Johnson
12. Jorge Heiland
13. Patrick Nielsen
14. Ryota Murata
15. Willie Monroe Jr
Out of the entire bunch, Tureano Johnson is perhaps the best once you get past Lemieux and N’Dam. Johnson is ranked low by the IBF at No.11, however. This means that the N’Dam-Lemieux winner won’t have to worry about Johnson getting into a title position for a long time if ever for the IBF belt.
Johnson is currently ranked #2 by the WBC, which normally would be good if WBC champion Miguel Cotto were to have a good chance of holding onto the title for a long time. But there’s a good chance that Cotto will either vacate or get beaten by WBC mandatory Gennady Golovkin. This means that we’ll see Golovkin likely take the WBC title. That’s not a good match-up for Tureano Johnson. He would likely do far better against N’Dam or Lemieux.
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