David Lemieux defeats Christian Rios – Results

By Boxing News - 10/23/2016 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: Former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (36-3, 32 KOs) defeated journeyman Cristian Fabian Rios (27-8-3, 6 KOs) by a one-sided 10 round unanimous decision on Saturday night in a fight in the 168lb division at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. The final judges’ score were 100-90, 100-90 and 99-91.

Lemieux, coming in heavier than usual, attempted to score a knockout, but he wasn’t able to get the job done against the tough Argentinian. Lemieux was getting hit in return, and he couldn’t get the KO like he’s used to.

Lemieux needs more work on his game before he steps it up against better opposition, because he looks like the same fighter that Gennady Golovkin destroyed last year. Lemieux is still a green fighter that has a lot to learn before he’s going to be able to have a chance against the better fighters in the middleweight division.

What’s worrisome is the weight for Lemieux. He needs to keep it down if he wants to stay in the middleweight division. Once Lemieux can no longer make 160, he’ll be forced to fight in the 168lb division, and he doesn’t have the height, reach, or the engine to fight the bigger guys in that weight class.

Lemieux is a lot better off fighting at middleweight where his power goes further. He couldn’t get the job done tonight against Rios, but the Argentinian has never been knocked out before in his eight-year pro career, and he’s used to fighting with sluggers in his home country. Lemieux was fortunate that Rios didn’t have a lot of punching power, because he would have been in trouble if he fought a slugger that could dish it out as well as take it.

The victory now puts Lemieux in position to fight potentially against Golden Boy Promotions flagship fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders in the first quarter of 2017. Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez said recently that Lemieux could face either Canelo or Saunders in the first quarter of next year.

It might be difficult for Lemieux to get a title shot against Saunders without help from the World Boxing Organization, because they recently said that Saunders will need to fight back to back mandatory defenses.

Lemieux is ranked #4 by the WBO. Unless the top three contenders all turn down a title shot against Saunders, it’s the only way Lemieux will get a chance for that fight. It’s thought that the WBO will soon be positioning light middleweight Saul Canelo Alvarez to the No.1 spot in their middleweight rankings so that he can be the one that fights Saunders for the WBO 160lb title.

If Golden Boy wants to match Canelo against Lemieux, then they’re going to need to build it up a little bit more for the fight to bring in good ratings on HBO. Tonight’s fight wasn’t good enough to do much to increase Lemieux’s popularity and to make the fans forget how badly he was whipped by Golovkin.

If Golden Boy and Eye of the Tiger promotions would take a risk with Lemieux by putting him in with a guy like Eubank Jr. Tureano Johnson, Lee or Stevens, then at least that would help build up a Canelo-Lemieux fight at least a little bit.

Lemieux is owed one more fight on HBO Boxing. It’s going to have to be someone good that he faces, because it’s not likely that HBO is going to want to put on mismatches involving Lemieux fighting guys like Glen Tapia and Christian Fabian Rios.

Lemieux’s management is likely going to need to put him in with someone at least with a fighting chance of winning if they want HBO to green light the fight. This means that Lemieux will need to fight guys like Canelo, Saunders, Chris Eubank Jr., Tureano Johnson, Curtis Stevens, Andy Lee, Peter Quillin, or Daniel Jacobs.

I think Lemieux can beat some of those fighters, but definitely not all of them. Johnson, Jacobs, Eubank Jr., Lee, Stevens and Saunders all beat Lemieux in my view. I think Lemieux can beat Quillin though if he lands something before Quillin can get him out of there. Lemieux can take a pretty good punch when he’s not being hit to the body. If Quillin hits him with a body shot, then I can see Lemieux getting stopped by him as well.

The win for Lemieux was his second since suffering an 8th round knockout loss to IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin last year in October. Lemieux’s management team is trying to build him back up o where he was before.

There wasn’t much of an undercard to go with the Lemieux vs. Rios fight unfortunately. The main event wasn’t much either, so it’s not surprising that the undercard was filled with obscure fighters.

In other results on the card:

Steven Butler TKO 1 Janks Trotter
Silverio Ortiz TKO 3 Mian Hussain
D’Mitrius Ballard TKO 2 Gergo Horvath