IBF confirmed no issue with GGG vs. Lemieux next, says Loeffler

By Boxing News - 06/24/2015 - Comments

golovkin445By Dan Ambrose: Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions is ruling out a fight between middleweight champions Gennady Golovkin and David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) for 2015, saying that the International Boxing Federation (IBF) says that Lemieux has a mandatory defense due.

Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler says that IBF is fine with Golovkin facing Lemieux at the end of year without the mandatory defense getting in the way.

If Golden Boy wants the fight between Golovkin and Lemieux, then this is their chance to make it happen. There’s no other fights that they can match Lemieux up against next that would rival a Golovkin-Lemieux fight. Miguel Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez are both busy. There are no other middleweights or junior middleweights with Golovkin’s popularity. Unless Golden Boy wants to steer Lemieux away from the hard hitting Golovkin, then this is their big chance to make a fight between the two fighters.

This runs counter to what De La Hoya was saying about Lemieux not being able to fight Lemieux in 2015 due to Lemieux’s mandatory defense being due. The ball is now in Golden Boy’s court to see what they’ll say now about the Golovkin-Lemieux fight. With the excuse that Lemieux can’t fight Golovkin due to his IBF mandatory being due can’t be used, then De La Hoya is going to need to come up with some other excuse for why he can’t let Lemieux fight Golovkin.

“David Lemieux is only getting better. He hits much harder than GGG and he’s a fighter who will press the action and fight him back,” De La Hoya said to ESPN.com. It’s an amazing matchup.”

If Lemieux hits harder than Golovkin then De La Hoya needs to put up or shut up and let Lemieux prove that he’s the harder puncher rather than just talking and not letting his fighter be tested.

I have a feeling that De La Hoya has a lot of doubts about Lemieux after seeing him fade badly in the last five rounds of his fight against Hassan N’Dam last Saturday. If Lemieux fades like that against Golovkin, then he’s going to get pounded into the canvas quickly just like he was in his fight against Marco Antonio Rubio in 2011. I don’t think Lemieux is much better than he was then. He still loads up too much on his shots, and it causes him to tire out quickly. He doesn’t relax when he fights like Golovkin does, and that’s not a good thing for the 26-year-old Lemieux.

If De La Hoya turns down the Golovkin fight for 2015, which would appear to be the case, then Lemieux will likely wind up fighting Tureano Johnson, a fighter who I feel would have a very good chance of beating Lemieux by a knockout. De La Hoya will be wishing he made the fight with Golovkin if that happens, because you can’t make it after Lemieux gets beaten again because the interest won’t be there with the fans. Lemieux will be seen as just another 6-round hype job.



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