By Jason Kim: Boxing fans may be seeing a future star in the making with unbeaten middleweight contender David Lemieux (25-0, 24 KO’s), who gets to show off his power this Friday night against Marco Antonio Rubio at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada.

This will be a WBC middleweight title eliminator bout with the winner of the fight becoming the mandatory challenger for the winner of the June 4th bout between WBC champion Sebastian Zbik and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Lemieux is ready to take on Zbik right now and has even talked about wanting to fight WBC Emeritus middleweight champ Sergio Martinez.

It’s still too early to be talking about putting Lemieux in with Martinez, but if Lemieux gets through Rubio and then knocks off Chavez Jr. or Zbik, there really won’t be much reason for the 22-year-old Lemieux to wait for the Martinez fight. The problem is Lemieux can’t wait two or three years to fight Martinez, because Martinez is getting up there in age at 36, and likely won’t be fighting too much longer.

Lemieux has to fight while he can before he retires. There isn’t a lot of other big fights for Lemieux in the middleweight division. If he wants a fight, there is only Chavez Jr., Martinez and possibly Kelly Pavlik if he can squeeze down to a reasonable catchweight. However, Lemieux first has to get by Rubio, because that’s the fight that will be Lemieux’s launching pad. If he can’t get by Rubio or if he struggles badly and looks poor, he’ll likely have to be satisfied with facing the Chavez Jr.- Zbik winner.