By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions are still trying to make a decision whether they should let their fighter IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) face WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) in a unification match this year.
Golden Boy has more than one options for the 26-year-old Lemieux as far as money bouts where he can do well financially. The least best option is to have Lemieux defend his title against the winner of the Tureano Johnson vs. Eamonn O’Kane fight, because that’s not a fight that will bring Lemieux much money, and it bring him a lot of risk.
The Golovkin-Lemieux fight is the best option for Lemieux if he wants to make good money straightaway, but it’s also a very risky fight for Lemieux because he’s inexperienced, young and flawed. Golden Boy would have to take the fight with the thought that Lemieux would likely be losing the fight. If they’re okay with Lemieux having an 80-90% chance of losing the fight, then they should go ahead and take it if the money is good enough.
If they feel that Lemieux can beat the likes of Tureano Johnson and hold onto the IBF title long enough to get a big money fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in the fight, then that’s a way that they need to go. But trying to get past Johnson might prove to be difficult for Lemieux because he’s not a good enough fighter to be assuming that he’s going to be able to beat any of the solid middleweights.
Lemieux can beat the weak-chinned middleweights without any problems, but against guys that are durable, throw a lot of punches, and have good power, he’s going to be at great risk at all times.
“We’re still trying to decide, looking at all options,” Golden Boy executive told RingTV.com. “He should get paid. We have a couple options we’re looking at. We have been approached by Tom Loeffler, but we haven’t decided. The fight excites me, and all of us, because I came at it from a fan perspective. We’re meeting later this week, a conference call, to go over all the options.”
The good thing about putting Lemieux in with Golovkin is that Lemieux wouldn’t take so much of a hit if he loses the fight. Golovkin is considered the best fighter in the middleweight division right now, so Lemieux won’t lose a lot of respect by fans if he gets knocked out in this fight.
Depending on how Lemieux performs in the fight, he might even gain respect if he’s able to knock Golovkin down, stun him, or land a lot of big shots before he gets knocked out by him. As long as Lemieux goes out on his shield in getting knocked out rather than being stopped on his feet again like he was against Golovkin victim Marco Antonio Rubio, Lemieux will come out of the fight having gained a lot of respect from fans.
It’s unclear how much money Golden Boy thinks they’re going to be able to get from a Lemieux fight. If they think he’s going to be able to make a ton of money in any of his fights then I think they’re going to be wrong. The only fight that might make Lemieux and Golden Boy some good money is if he faces Canelo, but the problem is Lemieux likely won’t be able to hold onto his IBF title long enough to take the fight with him. Lemieux will need to make normal title defenses until he gets the fight against Canelo and I don’t think he’s good enough to beat the top contenders that would be coming after him and his IBF title.
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