By Jim Dower: Unbeaten but still untested middleweight contender David Lemieux (25-0, 24 KO’s) will be getting his first real challenge of his young four-year pro career against contender Marco Antonio Rubio (49-5-1, 42 KO’s) in a WBC middleweight title eliminator bout on April 8th at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada.

If the 22-year-old Lemieux title can get by this fight and look good, he’s going to win over a lot of boxing fans because Rubio is a solid fighter. Beating him will be no easy task and if Lemieux can get him out of there in a hurry like he’s been doing against most of his other opponents, he’s going to be making a fans in the process.

A win over Rubio will put Lemieux in the position where he’ll be the mandatory challenger for the winner of the June 4th fight between WBC middleweight champion Sebastian Zbik and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. The best possible scenario will be Chavez Jr. beating Zbik, and then Lemieux going after Chavez Jr. at some point in the not too distant future for his title.

It would be two unbeaten knockout punchers going at it on pay-per-view. However, that fight will have to wait for in the future because Lemieux still has business to attend to with Rubio first. Rubio has excellent power and really heavy hands. Like Lemieux, Rubio knocks out pretty much everyone he fights. You have to have a really strong chin to survive for long against Rubio or else you need to be able to move well.