Ingle: Saunders can take Lemieux to school

By Boxing News - 12/01/2017 - Comments

Image: Ingle: Saunders can take Lemieux to school

By Scott Gilfoid: Trainer Dominic Ingle believes WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (25-0, 12 KOs) can take David Lemieux (38-3, 33 KOs) to school if he’s at his best on December 16 at the Place Bell in Laval, Quebec, Canada.

Ingle notes that Saunders hasn’t always been at his best for his recent fights due to his weight and training problems. But for the Lemieux fight, Ingle feels that the 28-year-old Saunders at his best. He still says he has to fight the best possible fight for him to give Lemieux a boxing lesson inside the ring, but he thinks he can do it.

It seems that the blueprint that Saunders will be trying to follow on the night is the one created by middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin with his victory over Lemieux in October 2015. Golovkin used his jab to control Lemieux, and limit how many big shots he was able to get off. For the most part, Golovkin stayed on the outside, jabbing and not putting himself at risk of getting hit by Lemieux’s big power shots. It wasn’t until the 8th round that Golovkin opened up with his big power shots to stop a tired looking Lemieux. Saunders will likely try the same tactics against Lemieux on December 9.

“Billy will have to follow the plan exactly to take Lemieux to school,” Ingle said to Le Journal de Montréal. “Lemieux has a good punch, but B.J. is an excellent boxer. I think his power is underestimated. I can guarantee you that he will have gasoline from the first to the 12th round. If Lemieux wants to win, he will have to be at the top of his game,” said Ingle.

Saunders doesn’t have the same kind of punching power as Golovkin or Curtis Stevens. It would be a mistake for Saunders to try and use what little power that he possesses. If Saunders puts himself in the position where he can get hit back by Lemieux, he’s going to get badly hurt.

It’s been 2 years since Saunders put in a reasonably good performance in his win over Andy Lee. He won that fight by a 12 round majority decision, but he gassed out after round 5, and appeared to lose the last 7 rounds of the fight. In Saunders’ subsequent fights against Artur Akavov and Willie Monroe, he’s looked like a shadow of the fighter that beat Lee. Saunders wasn’t good against Lee, but he’s been dreadful looking against Akavov and Monroe Jr. Boxing News 24 had Saunders losing to Akavov. The only reason Saunders beat Monroe Jr. is because the American fighter did nothing in the fight, rarely throwing any punches. When Monroe did throw shots, he was catching Saunders and getting the better of the action. You can argue that Saunders is now on the decline in his career, and is ready to be beaten by almost anyone in the division. Monroe would have done it if he’s thrown some punches, but he seemed to be fixated with catching Saunders with single head-snapping jabs all night. What a waste of an opportunity for Monroe Jr.

He’s had his best camp so far and he’s 100% against Lemieux, said Ingle in talking about Saunders. ”He’s been training seriously since the end of June.”

Saunders looks like he’s been working hard on taking off weight. Judging from the recent photos and videos of Saunders, he’s trimmed down considerably from the pudgy looking fighter that stood alongside Lemieux when their December 9 fight was first announced. Saunders is much thinner now, but in a bad way. Saunders looks as thin as Adrien Broner before facing Mikey Garcia last July. Broner was too thin for that fight, and he ended up getting easily beaten by Garcia. I think Saunders is in the same situation. He’s taken off so much fat that it’s going to be difficult for him to muster up enough punching power to keep Lemieux off of him. The only thing Saunders can hope for is Lemieux doing the same thing by overtraining. Fighters do that all the time. They deviate from their normal training routine when they’ve scheduled to face top guys, and they end up getting poor results. Some of these guys believe that more is better. If they only train harder, they’ll get better results. It doesn’t work that way unfortunately. If Lemieux does what he’s been doing in training camp, he’s going to be a nightmare for Saunders on December 16. With Saunders looked painfully thin, he’s not going to be able to keep Lemieux off of him for any length of time, even if he runs. In Saunders’ recent fight against Monroe Jr. last September, he was backing up against the ropes and defending from that position at times. If Saunders does that even once against Lemieux, he’s going to get knocked out just like Curtis Stevens did. Indeed, I think this fight could end by the 3rd round if Saunders backs up against the ropes and tries to battle Lemieux from that spot.

If Saunders gets knocked out by Lemieux, he can at least say he had a good little run as the WBO middleweight champion. It’s been exactly 2 years since Saunders captured the WBO belt off Andy Lee. It’s nice that Saunders was able to hold onto his belt for 2 years. Granted, Saunders didn’t fight anyone good during his 2 years as a champion, as he’s been milking his WBO title against weak opposition in Akavov and Monroe Jr., but he still held onto the strap for 2 years. It’s too bad for Saunders that he didn’t take full advantage of his time as the WBO strap holder by defending the belt frequently. During that 2 years, Saunders should have defended the belt no less than 6 times if he wanted to get the most out of being a champion. Instead, Saunders will only have 3 fights to show for his title reign. Oh well, that’s how it goes sometimes. Some champions are able to get out a lot of their time as champions, whereas some of the others like Saunders do next to nothing. I got the sense that Saunders has been stalling for time ever since he won the WBO belt, waiting and waiting endlessly for a big money fight against Gennady Golovkin or Saul Canelo Alvarez. It looks like the World Boxing Organization wasn’t willing to let Saunders take on another easy mark in continuation of his stall pattern. If Saunders can beat Lemieux, he can continue to stall and wait for getting Canelo or Golovkin.