By Ben Taafe: Undefeated Canadian knockout artist David Lemieux (11-0, 11 KOs) continued his perfect streak of knockouts with a 1st round TKO over Lance Moody (4-7-2, 3 KOs) on Saturday night at the Montreal Casino, Montreal, in Quebec, Canada. Moody, 23, like virtually all of the light middleweight Lemieux’s opponents thus far in his short pro career, was badly overmatched before the fight ever started and had little real chance of competing with the unbeaten Canadian prospect.
However, in contrast to some of Lemieux’s other opponents, he was able to throw at least a few smart looking punches before being quickly dispatched by a big left hook at 2:15 of the round. Lemieux dropped Moody twice in the round, both with enormously powerful left hooks which were thrown with a lot of speed as well. Moody was still slightly stunned from the first knockdown earlier in the round when he walked into a perfect left hook by Lemieux, which sent Moody crashing to the canvas. There was no way he was going to make if off the canvas after this knockdown, and the fight was stopped seconds later as Michael Griffin called a halt to the fight at 2:15 of the round.
Moody, who came into the bout with a terrible record of 4-6, looks surprisingly good in the first minute of the round, landing hard jabs and right hands to the head of Lemieux and looking much better than his record would have you believe. However, Lemieux wasted little time in cranking up his own offense, throwing brutal left uppercuts and hooks to the head. Lemieux’s right hand is unfortunately much less of a weapon than his left, and rarely used it in the round except as a token punch he would throw on occasion.
Instead, he was almost like a one-armed fighter, depending solely on his left hook, jab and uppercut to do almost all his damage. However, as predictable as Lemieux was, Moody wasn’t in the position to take advantage of it due to his marginal ability. After looking good in the first moments of the fight, Moody went into survival mode, just taking shots and trying to move and cover-up to survive Lemieux’s heavy onslaught.
Lemieux pretty much gave up completely on his right hand and went left hand crazy, hitting Moody with six consecutive hammering left hooks, the last sending Moody to the canvas. It looked for the most part like he wasn’t going to get up, and in hindsight, he probably should have stayed down because he had no hope of winning the fight. In a way, it was like a kid with no chance whatsoever going up against a man. However, Moody got up alright and even went after Lemieux and hitting him with a right to the midsection and two good left hand shots.
Lemieux stayed calm, knowing that he had a wounded duck in front of him, and unloaded with two big left hooks, sending Moody to the canvas for the second time. Moody, in fact, walked into the last punch, which caught him perfectly in the head, making a loud sound as it landed. He fell down immediately, and lay on the canvas stretched out with one arm supporting him as if he were contemplating getting up for a second time. The referee, however, counted him out before he could make the decision and the fight was stopped.
It was a good win for Lemieux, but he needs to consider facing better competition than what he’s been fighting as of late. He hits hard, to be sure, but at 5’9”, he’s very small for the light middleweight division and he probably won’t fare well in the division unless he makes a career of fighting D-class fighters. The smart move would be for him to lose some weight and drop down to either welterweight or light welterweight where he would have a much better chance at winning a title.