Roach: Golovkin kills Lemieux

By Boxing News - 09/27/2015 - Comments

1-GolovkinLemieuxLAPC_Hoganphotos11By Dan Ambrose: Freddie Roach, the trainer for WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto, says that IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) will absolutely kill IBF 160lb champion David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) in their fight next month on October 17th at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Roach thinks that Golovkin will have no problems beating the 26-year-old Lemieux, and he believes that he can KO the Canadian fighter any time he wants in that fight. Roach says he wants to see Cotto face Golovkin afterwards so that he can fight out which of the two fighters are the best in the world.

Roach has a lot of respect for Golovkin, but he says he sees flaws in his game. Roach feels that Golovkin hasn’t faced the best opposition as of yet. He doesn’t blame Golovkin for that, as he sees the middleweight division as being a real weak one right now due to the lack of talent.

“I’m not so sure, but I’d like to see him fight a high caliber fighter. I am a big fan of his and I do like watching him. I do study him and there are flaws. He [Golovkin] kills Lemieux whenever he wants,” Roach said to fighthub.

Roach is just one of many people who see the Golovkin-Lemieux fight as being an easy one for Golovkin. People aren’t giving Lemieux much credit for what he’s accomplished in his career because of the way he fell apart against Marco Antonio Rubio in 2011. Lemieux punched himself out after five rounds and was pounded in the 6th and knocked out in the 7th.

In that same year, Lemieux was also beaten by Joachim Alcine, a fighter that is up there in age. Lemieux has since won his last nine fights in the last four years. His two best wins of his career came recently against Gabriel Rosado and Hassan N’Dam. The win over N’Dam has given Lemieux a lot of confidence because he’s a good fighter, and he recently beat Curtis Stevens.

“Triple G is a tough fight. The thing is I think he’s a great fighter,” Roach said. “I don’t know if he’s the greatest fighter in the world right now. I’d like to see him in a little bit of a test, and I think Cotto would do that. Cotto would give him a test and then we’d decide who the best fighter in the world is after that. He [Golovkin] controls the ring real well. His ring generalship is great. He does cut off the ring well. He’s a good puncher to the body or to the head,” Roach said.

I don’t think Cotto is the right kind of test for Golovkin to tell him good he is. Golovkin needs a better fighter than Cotto to show whether he’s the best or not. I think some of the top junior middleweights like Jermall Charlo, Erislandy Lara and Demetrius Andrade would be a better gauge to show how good Golovkin is rather than Cotto.

“He’s not an easy fight for anybody. But the opponents in his weight division right now, there’s just not a lot of guys out there right now that are good fighters,” Roach said. “Back in the day when Sugar Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns and all those guys were there, maybe he’d be an average fighter, maybe he’d be good,” Roach said.

Hearns and Leonard wouldn’t have been strong enough to handle a puncher like Golovkin. I think it would have ended badly for them both if they could fight in this era against the likes of Golovkin.We saw what happened to Hearns when he fought Marvin Hagler. Hearns was broken by the pressure from Hagler.



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