Lemieux vs. Canelo possible for early 2017

By Boxing News - 10/20/2016 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: If former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux gets past his fight against little known Cristian Fabian Rios this Saturday night on October 22, he could be facing superstar Saul Canelo Alvarez in the first quarter of 2017, according to Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez. He has two scenarios for the 27-year-old Lemieux (35-3, 32 KOs), one of the scenarios is Lemieux fighting WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (23-0, 12 KOs) for his WBO belt.

Gomez also likes the idea of matching Lemieux against Golden Boy’s flagship fighter Canelo. The odds of Lemieux fighting Saunders for his WBO title are extremely low. Saunders wants to fight Canelo or Golovkin. He’s probably not going to be agreeable at all in a fight against a dangerous puncher like Lemieux, even though he might have enough boxing skills to beat him.

Lemieux is ranked #4 with the World Boxing Organization, which means he’s not going to be able to force a fight against Saunders.

The Lemieux vs. Cristian Rios (21-7-3, 6 KOs) fight will be taking place this Saturday night at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. It’s the second mismatch in a row for Lemieux since his 8th round knockout loss to IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin last October on HBO pay-per-view.

Lemieux was beaten with ease by Golovkin, who picked him apart until the referee halted the fight after Lemieux was hurt by a body shot. Golovkin knocked Lemieux down in the 5th round from a body shot.

“We’re looking for him to fight in the first quarter of next year and one of the possibilities is to have him fight Saunders,” Eric Gomez said to ESPN.com about Lemieux vs. Saunders. “It would be a very good fight. So we’ll see what happens, how he comes out. Another possibility is him fighting Canelo when Canelo finally moves up to 160.”

It’s hard to believe Gomez in his talk of matching Canelo against Lemieux or Golovkin. I think Gomez is just name dropping Canelo and Lemieux’s names to drive up interest in Lemieux’s mismatch against Rios while at the same time keeping Canelo’s name alive in the eyes of the boxing fans.

There’s talk that Canelo will fight at catch-weights at 158lbs for his first two fights in 2017 in February and in May. Asking Lemieux to drain down to 158 to fight Canelo might be a step too far for him, because Lemieux is barely making the weight. Indeed, Lemieux came in overweight in his weigh-in for his fight against James De La Rosa. The fight failed to take place because of the weight issue. In Lemieux’s last match against Glen Tapia last May, he made the 160lb limit and easily knocked out Tapia in the 4th round. Tapia hadn’t fought in an entire year at the time of that fight.

It’s unlikely that Lemieux will be able to get the fight against Saunders in early 2017 unless Golden Boy wants to overpay for that fight. Saunders wants a big payday, and the only way he’s going to get that is if he fights Canelo or Golovkin. However, Golovkin is going to be busy in the first quarter of 2017 with his fight against WBA ‘regular’ middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs so he’s not going to be available. I don’t know that Canelo will be willing to fight Lemieux in early 2017, because there would be some risk involved for him due to Lemieux’s punching power.

Lemieux is owed one more fight from HBO for his contract with him. He’s not going to use that fight for his mismatch against the 33-year-old Rios this Saturday. The idea is for Lemieux to be involved in a fairly big fight against Saunders or Canelo. Golden Boy Promotions can make those fights if they’re willing to come up with the money to make those fights happen. I just don’t know if there’s any incentive to make them happen. Like I said, Lemieux is barely making 160. If Golden Boy sets up a catchweight fight at 158 between Lemieux and Canelo, it’s likely going to weaken Lemieux to the point where he’s not going to be able to fight effectively. However, that might help him get the fight, because it’s unlikely that Golden Boy will want to risk their golden goose Canelo by putting hi in with someone that can potentially beat him.

“The big prize for David is a Canelo fight but there are a lot of scenarios, including Saunders,” Gomez said.

The magic question is whether Golden Boy will let Canelo fight Lemieux. Golovkin made Lemieux look like a rank amateur in beating him last year, but that’s Golovkin. Canelo clearly isn’t as good as Golovkin, and he would be very hittable by Lemieux. If Lemieux is able to land his big shots against Canelo, he could take him out. We saw Canelo get staggered by James Kirkland, and hurt by Austin Trout and Floyd Mayweather Jr. None of those guys have the punching power of Lemieux.

If Canelo gets nailed by one of Lemieux’s body or head shots, we could see the fight over very quickly. It would be terrible news for Golden Boy if Canelo loses to Lemieux, because it would mean there would need to be a second fight between them. Canelo couldn’t just walk away from the defeat like he did after his controversial decision win over Erislandy Lara and his loss to Mayweather. A loss for Canelo would take a lot of the interest out of a fight between him and Golovkin.

It would also potentially impact his pay-per-view numbers on HBO. Canelo currently can be counted on to get at least 300,000 buys against over-matched opposition that Golden Boy is putting him in with over and over again. If Canelo loses to Lemieux, then it would likely cause a lot of boxing fans to lose interest in paying to see him fight. There would be still Canelo’s diehard casual boxing fans that would pay to see him fight on the Mexican holidays that he likes to fight on, but it’s still hard to imagine the fans wanting to continue to pay to see him fight.