Golovkin to Lemieux: Let’s make it happen now, not in the future!

By Boxing News - 06/21/2015 - Comments

golovkin101By Dan Ambrose: Now that Canada’s David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) has captured the IBF middleweight title with a 12 round unanimous decision win over Hassan N’Dam (31-2, 18 KOs) as of last Saturday night, WBA 160lb champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) is eager to get the 26-year-old Lemieux in the ring for a unification match.

Golovkin had been waiting for the outcome of the Lemieux-N’Dam fight in order to challenge the winner, and now that Lemieux has emerged victorious, Golovkin has already called him out for a unification fight.

Golovkin says he doesn’t want to wait for the fight against Lemieux to happen down the road. He wants it to take place right now. The problem with that is there’s already talk that Lemieux’s promoters are going to have him defend it first against his IBF mandatory challenger, and after that they’re going to look to match Lemieux against the winner of the November fight between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto.

Lemieux has a very good chance of getting the winner of the Cotto-Canelo fight rather than Golovkin, even though the Kazakhstan fighter is considered to be better than Lemieux by a lot of boxing fans.

It’s probable that Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya is going to make Golovkin wait to get a shot at Lemieux until after he’s matched Lemieux up against a contender or two, and then against the winner of the Canelo vs. Cotto fight. I can’t see Golovkin getting a shot against Lemieux in 2015 or 2016.

It’s possible that De La Hoya might let Golovkin fight Lemieux in 2017, but that’s only if Lemieux’s career is on the slide. I think it’s very doubtful that De La Hoya will let Lemieux fight Golovkin while Lemieux is bringing in good money fighting contenders and the likes of Canelo or Cotto. Lemieux is a good source of a revenue stream, and I don’t think De La Hoya is going to ruin that potential money flow by letting him fight Golovkin and get knocked out.

You can bet that Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler is going to be trying real hard to make the Golovkin-Lemieux fight with Golden Boy, but I don’t see it happening. I think Golovkin’s destiny is for him to fight #3 WBA Tureano Johnson next September rather than a big name. I doubt he’ll even get No.1 WBA Chris Eubanks Jr. for his next fight.

Lemieux knocked N’Dam down four times last Saturday night in winning by the scores of 115-109, 115-109, and 114-110. The scores were so close because N’Dam was out-boxing Lemieux left and right in the rounds where Lemieux failed to knock him down.

Lemieux looked winded in the last four rounds of the fight, and very vulnerable. You can only imagine what would have happened to Lemieux if he were in the ring with the likes of Golovkin, Cotto or Canelo in that fight. Lemieux looked spent. He wasn’t as tired as he was in his losses to Marco Antonio Rubio and Joachim Alcine, but he was close enough to lose many of the late rounds.



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