(Photo Credit: Hogan Photos/Golden Boy Promotions) By Dan Ambrose: Former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-3, 31 Kos) will be looking to turn his career around this Saturday night against junior middleweight Glen Tapia (23-2, 15 KOs) in a 10 round fight in the co-feature bout on the undercard of the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Amir Khan card on HBO pay-per-view at 9:00 p.m. ET at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Lemieux will have a big size advantage over Tapia, and this fight figures to be a mismatch. Tapia hasn’t fought an entire year since his 4th round knockout loss to Michel Soro last year in May 2015. The fact Tapia hasn’t fought in 12 months makes you wonder about his love for the sport. Normally see older fighters taking long breaks after losses, not young fighters like Tapia. If Tapia loses on Saturday night, then I won’t be surprised if we see him disappear for another extended break from the sport.
Both Tapia and Lemieux are coming off losses and long layoffs. Lemiex, ranked #6 WBC, #8 IBF, lost his last fight to Gennady Golovkin by an 8th round knockout last October in a fight televised by HBO PPV at Madison Square Garden in New York. Lemieux felt very confident ahead of time that he would beat Golovkin and give him a hard fight. Instead of that happening, Lemieux fought scared for eight rounds and was blasted out while still on his feet. Lemieux looked like he didn’t have the courage to go to war with Golovkin and risk his head being knocked off.
That’s what Lemieux would have needed to do in order for him to have a chance of winning the fight, and he wasn’t willing to do what he needed to for him to have a fighting chance of winning.
Lemieux, 27, was supposed to have fought last March on the 12th, but he failed to make weight for his fight against James De La Rosa in Montreal, so the fight failed to take place.
There are some interesting fights on the undercard other than the Lemieux-Tapia fight, which I don’t feel is an interesting fight. Here are the fights on the card:
Mauricio Herrera (22-5, 7 KOs) vs. Frankie Gomez (20-0, 13 KOs)
Patrick Teixeira (26-0, 22 KOs) vs. Curtis Stevens (27-5, 20 KOs)
Lemieux not making weight for his canceled fight against De La Rosa would seem to suggest that it’s time that he moves up to super middleweight. Lemieux was huge for his fight against Golovkin, and I think it’s clear that the 27-year-old has grown out of the middleweight division. That’s why it seems so odd that he’s being matched against a junior middleweight rather than someone his own size in the 168lb division.
Lemieux vs. Tapia being put as the co-feature bout on the Canelo-Khan card seems to a obvious sign that Golden Boy Promotions wants to build Lemieux back up so that they can either put him in with Canelo or they want to try and position Lemieux for a world title shot. I think Golden Boy is looking to rebuild Lemieux’s name enough so that they have a name to feed to Canelo because he has very few options to be matched against in the middleweight division.
The top names are too dangerous for Canelo. If Golden Boy risks their golden goose Canelo against Golovkin or Daniel Jacobs, he might get plucked clean. That might hurt Canelo’s money making ability, and that could mean no more golden eggs from him. That’s why I don’t see Golden Boy letting Golovkin or Jacobs anywhere near Canelo. Instead, we’ll see Golden Boy matching Canelo against flawed fighters like Lemieux and guys from the welterweight and junior middleweight divisions.
“I’m ready to get back in business. In my last fight, I didn’t make weight. I had some issues. I can talk about it all I want and say a lot of excuses,” Lemieux said to ESPN.com. “There are no excuses. The people don’t care about the excuses. One thing I can say, this fight I’m coming in, I’m making weight and I’m coming here for business. You have my 100 percent. I’m going to be stronger and better than ever. I’m extremely excited to be on the show and to be giving the fans the best of me.”