Lemieux faces 37-year-old Gates tonight

By Boxing News - 12/03/2010 - Comments

Image: Lemieux faces 37-year-old Gates tonightBy Jim Dower: Unbeaten middleweight contender David Lemieux (24-0, 23 KO’s) takes on 37-year-old Purnell Gates (18-1, 13 KO’s) tonight in a scheduled 10 round bout at the Bell Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. This should be another 1st round knockout for Lemieux in another easy fight that likely won’t teach him a whole lot. It’s sad that he’s not being put in with better fighters than this but it looks like his handlers want to keep him soft for awhile longer. There’s talk of Lemieux facing Marco Antonio Rubio (48-5-1, 41 KO’s) for the newly created World Boxing Council Silver strap title for April 2011. It will be interesting to see if that fight happens. It likely will depend on how well Lemieux does against Gates tonight.

Lemieux, ranked #3 WBA and #3 WBC, destroyed former light welterweight contender Hector Camacho Jr in a 1st round knockout on October 29th. Camacho, at one time a lean light welterweight, looked slightly pudgy and out of his weight class, did little in the fight before getting mowed down by Lemieux. Before that, Lemieux stopped Elvin Ayala in the 1st round in June. In April, he took out Walid Smichet in two rounds. The only opponent that has been able to go the distance against Lemieux was Jason Naugler, who lasted 10 rounds against Lemieux in February. Naugler was able to expose Lemieux’s poor defense in that fight. Lemieux looked badly faded towards the end of their fight, no doubt not used to fighting more than one or two rounds.

This is the bad thing about Lemieux ‘s tendency to knockout all his over-matched opponents in the 1st and 2nd rounds. When he finally faces someone with decent skills that takes him deep in the fight, Lemieux might not be ready. This is why it’s not a good thing that he’s being fed fighters that he can steam roll over one after another without mixing in someone with a good chin that he can work on his defense and stamina. He could end up stunting his own growth by taking out fighters in one or two rounds every time.



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