Lemieux explains why he rejected Saunders fight

By Boxing News - 07/07/2017 - Comments

Image: Lemieux explains why he rejected Saunders fight

By Allan Fox: Former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (38-3, 33 KOs) passed up a shot to fight unbeaten WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (24-0, 12 KOs) on September 16. Lemieux, 28, says he was dealing with injuries and the timing was bad for him.

Saunders will now be defending his WBO title against #5 WBO contender Willie Monroe Jr. next on September 16 at the Copper Box Arena in London, England. The fights expected to be announced soon. Monroe has already fought for world title against Gennady Golovkin and lost to him in 2015 by a 6th round TKO. Lemieux would be more dangerous for Saunders than Monroe. It would be a winnable fight for Lemieux.

Lemieux suffered a shoulder and hand injury in his recent 10 round unanimous decision win over Marcos Reyes on May 6. The injuries made it impossible for Lemieux o quickly get back into the ring in time for him to challenge Saunders.

Lemieux didn’t want to take a risk in facing Saunders at less than 100 percent, considering he’s interested in fighting Miguel Cotto. Both fighters are now with Golden Boy Promotions, and it’s a doable fight. Cotto is facing Yoshihiro Kamegai next month for the vacant WBO junior middleweight title on August 26.

Lemieux obviously wouldn’t be interested in fighting Cotto for the WBO 154 lb. title if he’s able to win the vacant strap against Kamegai. A fight between Lemieux and Cotto would be a nice payday for both guys. Lemieux would stand a better chance of beating Cotto than he would in fighting the winner of the Gennady “GGG” Golovkin vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight.

“I really wanted to fight him, but the timing is not good for me because we are aiming for a bigger fight and the risks are high than it is,” said Lemieux to tvasports.ca in explaining why he couldn’t fight the 27-year-old Saunders.

It might have been better for Lemieux to still take the fight with Saunders even if he wasn’t 100 percent. Fighting Cotto isn’t doing to do much other than give Lemieux a payday. Cotto isn’t going to be a middleweight champion again. He might pick up the WBO 154 lb. title, but only because he’s fighting a weak opponent in Yoshihiro Kamegai instead of one of the good contenders in the junior middleweight division like Erickson Lubin or Julian “J-Rock” Williams.

Beating Cotto isn’t going to do much for Lemieux in his situation at middleweight. Lemieux is still going to need to prove that he can compete against the best fighters in the middleweight division. There’s risk involved in Lemieux fighting Cotto. There’s only been one fighter that has been able to stop Cotto, and that was Antonio Margarito, who had to take a lot of punishment for the first 9 rounds before he was able to hurt him in the 10th and stop him in the 11th.

Lemieux usually knocks his opponents out early in his fights. If he’s forced to take heavy shots from Cotto for 10 or 11 rounds, Lemieux might not be still around by that point in the fight to try and get to Cotto. Lemieux’s career would be on skid row if he loses to Cotto, owning to the fact that Cotto isn’t a major player at middleweight. Cotto is too small to deal with best quality opposition at 160. Lemieux has to show that he can dismantle and crush Cotto. If that’s the direction Lemieux wants to take his career right now, then he must show that he’s got the sie and power to destroy the past his best 36-year-old Cotto.

Lemieux is finally been given permission from his doctor to get back in training. Lemieux had a tear in one of his shoulders as well as a left hand injury from the Reyes fight. Lemieux had a pretty easy time defeating Reyes, but it was still a physical fight because the Mexican fighter fought hard and even attempted to rally at times. Reyes forced Lemieux into the later rounds of the fight, and really give it his all to win a decision. The scores were wide in favor of Lemieux by the scores 99-90, 99-90 and 98-91. Reyes took some awful punishment in the contest, but he showed a great deal of heart. I don’t think Lemieux realized how tough this fight would be when he first signed on for it.

“I have learned that I cannot do close fights like this at the stage I am in my career,” said Lemieux. “When I went to see my doctor a year and a half ago, he looked at my hands and said, “David, you have the hands of a man aged 70-80.”

Lemieux hasn’t taken a lot of punishment during his 10-year pro career in boxing. Lemieux has had a small handful of tough fights against Gennady Golovkin, Gabriel Rosado, Joachim Alcine, Marco Antonio Rubio and Reyes. That’s it as far as competitive fights for Lemieux. The remainder of the matches Lemieux has had has been one-sided affairs in which he’s mostly knocked out his over-matched opponents quickly.

It’s not unexpected that Lemieux has been experiencing hand injuries. He hits so hard that something has got to give on his side. Lemieux’s opponents have fallen apart quickly under the bombardment of heavy blows by him, but his hands and shoulder are starting to show the signs of wear and tear of him throwing with so much power. Lemieux might be better off doing what Golovkin does in varying the power on his shots. Golovkin doesn’t throw every punch with maximum power the way that Lemieux does. Golovkin mixes up the power. Perhaps that’s one reason why GGG isn’t breaking down the way that Lemieux is despite being 7 years older at 35 than the Canadian.

“The glory will be worth 1000 times more than the little pain there will be for the rest of my day,” said Lemieux.

Lemieux was briefly the International Boxing Federation middleweight title from June 2015 to October 2015. Lemieux won the vacant IBF 160 lb. title in beating Hassan N’Dam by a 12 round unanimous decision. Lemieux then lost the IBF strap in fighting Golovkin in his next fight.

Lemieux didn’t have to take the fight with Golovkin. He wanted to test himself by fighting the best, and unfortunately things didn’t work out well for him in losing an 8th round knockout to the Kazakhstan fighter.

Lemieux talks about glory. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been much glory of the highest kind for Lemieux during his boxing career. He just has that win over N’Dam to show for himself. He won the IBF belt, but then couldn’t hold onto the title. When Lemieux went up against Golovkin, he was easily beaten. Golovkin mostly used his jab for most of the fight. When Golovkin switched things up in the 8th by throwing body shots, Lemieux wilted immediately and the fight had to be stopped to save him.

Lemieux will have a chance to fight for one of the middleweight titles in the near future once Golovkin moves up in weight to super middleweight. If Golovkin is still champion at the time he moves up to 168, he’ll give up his IBF, IBO, WBA and WBC titles. Lemieux can then chase after one of the belts and see if he can become a world champion once again.