Lemieux-Rubio: David in an important WBC middleweight title eliminator on 4/8

By Boxing News - 03/09/2011 - Comments

By Michael Lieberman: Unbeaten middleweight contender David Lemieux (25-0, 24 KO’s) faces Mexican Marco Antonio Rubio (49-5-1, 42 KO’s) on April 8th in a WBC middleweight title eliminator bout at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada. The winner of this fight will become the mandatory challenger for the winner of the June 4th fight between WBC middleweight champion Sebastian Zbik and challenger Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.

However, even if Lemieux beats Rubio next month, which seems likely with Lemieux’s crushing power, he still will have to wait for a shot against the winner of the Chavez-Zbik fight because neither of them are going to be eager to take on the hard hitting Canadian immediately and risk getting knocked out.

Lemieux, 22, is quickly proving to be one of the hardest punchers in the middleweight division, and perhaps a top five guy in the division. It’s still too early to know whether Lemieux deserves to be ranked up there with the likes of Felix Sturm, Dimitry Pirog, Sergio Martinez, Sebastian Sylvester or Gennady Golovkin. But we’ll be seeing soon. The Rubio fight will be a good test for Lemieux, because Rubio can punch and has been in previously with Kelly Pavlik. Rubio lost that fight by a 9th round stoppage in February 2009. It was a one-sided fight with Rubio mostly running and taking punishment.

If Lemieux can get Rubio out of there in quicker fashion than Pavlik, it will make a huge statement for Lemieux and give a good indication about how good Lemieux is. He could end up being one of the most avoided fighters before long if he keeps knockout his opponents in the first couple or rounds. In the past year, Lemieux stopped Walid Smichet in the 2nd, Elvin Ayla in the 1st, Hector Camacho Jr. in the 1st and Purnell Gates in the 2nd.



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