David Lemieux will KO Gennady Golovkin, says De La Hoya

By Boxing News - 09/24/2015 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya is promising that his fighter IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) will be scoring a knockout against IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) in their fight on HBO pay-per-view on October 17th at Madison Square Garden in New York.

De La Hoya was at last Wednesday’s Lemieux media workout in Montreal, Canada to watch him work out with his trainer in the ring. De La Hoya came up with the prediction to whip up the pro-Lemieux crowd, and it worked. The fans were cheering loudly for their underdog fighter.

“Yes, it’s a tough fight because no fight is easy, but on October 17th, mark my words, this is my prediction, my humble prediction, I feel David Lemieux can knockout ‘Triple G,’ and we will have a new super star hailing from Canada,” De La Hoya said at the Lemieux media workout on Wednesday.

Golovkin-Lemieux start time: 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT

Where to see it? Live on HBO pay-per-view

Location of Golovkin vs. Lemieux fight: Madison Square Garden, New York

Date: October 17

Lemieux looked really huge during the media workout yesterday. If the 26-year-old fighter’s weight stays where it is right now, which you have to suspect will be the case, then I think Lemieux will walk into the ring at no less than 175 pounds on October 17th when he faces Golovkin at the Mecca of Boxing at Madison Square Garden.

Lemieux’s 30-day weight was 175.4 pounds, and he doesn’t look like he’s lost any of that weight in the last week. What this means in terms of the fight is that Lemieux will likely only be strong during the first six rounds of the contest on 10/17? If Lemieux doesn’t score a knockout by the 6th, it will be all downhill for him from there on out.

Lemieux will have to drain 15 pounds of water weight to get down to the 160lb limit, and it might be more than that because his 30-day weigh-in was probably a case of Lemieux draining down 5-7 pounds from the 180s to get to 175.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Lemieux has to drain 20 pounds of water weight from 180 to get to 160. While there are some fighters like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. who are good at dropping close to 20 pounds of water weight to make weight for their fights and then put it back on without any ill effects, Lemieux clearly isn’t one of them. He runs out of gas in his fights once he gets past the 6th round, and that tells me that Lemieux is fighting in the wrong weight class.

The 5’9” fighter really should be fighting at super middleweight, since those fighters make weight at 168 and then rehydrate to 175 to 188. Lemieux would fit in perfectly in that weight class, and likely wouldn’t run out of gas after six rounds like he does for his middleweight contests.

The only problem with Lemieux fighting at super middleweight is that he would be fighting a lot of fighters in the 6-foot range like Badou Jack, James DeGale, George Groves, Andre Dirrell and Andre Ward. But if the 5’9” Arthur Abraham has been able to find a niche by winning the WBO 168lb title, then Lemieux can too.

It’s going to be difficult for Lemieux to drain off all the extra weight that he has on his frame to get down to 160 on October 16th at the weigh-in, but I believe he’ll find a way to take it all off. However, like I said, I think Lemieux is going to be useless after the 6th round on October 17th.

All Golovkin will need to do to defeat Lemieux is take it easy for the first six rounds by avoiding any major exchanges of punches. Once it gets past the 6th or 7th rounds, Golovkin can then turn up the heat and wear the weary Lemieux down and score the knockout.

Golovkin will still need to push a fast pace in the first six rounds in order to get Lemieux even more tired in the second half of the fight, but that’ll be easy to do because Lemieux will be exerting a lot of energy while attempting to land his bread and butter punch, which is his left hook.

In addition to his IBO and WBA titles, Golovkin also holds the WBC interim 160lb title. He’s the mandatory challenger to WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto. This means that the winner of the Golovkin-Lemieux fight will become the mandatory to the winner of the Cotto vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight on November 21st. You can bet that if Lemieux beats Golovkin there will be no hesitation on the part of the Cotto-Canelo winner to immediately face him in their very next fight.

If Golovkin wins the fight on October 17th, then it’ll possibly be a different story with the Cotto vs. Canelo winner choosing to vacate their WBC middleweight title in order not to have to face Golovkin. The winner of the Golovkin-Lemieux fight will have two of the four middleweight titles.

The only title that won’t be in their possession is the WBC and WBO title. They could get the WBC title the easy way if the Cotto-Canelo winner chooses to vacate the belt or if they simply refuses to fight the Golovkin-Lemieux winner. If that happens, the World Boxing Council will step in and strip the WBC title from the winner of that fight and then give the title to the winner of the Golovkin vs. Lemieux fight.

It’s going to be really tough for Lemieux to beat a fighter as talented as Golovkin even if he’s in the best of shape. But with Lemieux hauling around 180 pounds of weight, he’s very likely going to fade badly once the fight gets into the second half of the contest. Like I said, Lemieux really should be fighting at super middleweight, because he’s too big for middleweight.

Tickets for the Golovkin vs. Lemieux fight have already been sold out for their fight at Madison Square Garden in New York. The only way for boxing fans to see the fight is on HBO pay-per-view.



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