By Dan Ambrose: Unbeaten middleweight contender David Lemieux (25-0, 24 KO’s) faces Marco Antonio Rubio (49-5-1, 42 KO’s) on Friday night at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada. Lemieux, 22, started out his career as a kind of shy, quiet fighter but recently he’s starting to get his confidence under him and is making himself heard by talking about this or that fighter and how he’s going to knock everyone out.

Lemieux may be setting himself up to look bad if he doesn’t shine tonight or even worse if he loses. Listed at 5’10 1/2″, Lemieux looks shorter than that by at least two inches, possibly a little more. Lemieux looks a tad taller than 5’7″ Miguel Cotto and his arms are noticibly short. Rubio isn’t exactly a big middleweight either at only 5’10.

However, Rubio has long arms and a good straight right hand. Rubio needs to make sure he doesn’t throw any looping shots tonight because he doesn’t need to get hit with any of Lemieux’s shorter punches, at least early in the fight. Rubio has a good chin but you don’t want to let someone as powerful as Lemieux hit you too many times early in the fight because there’s too much danger of being knocked out. Lemieux has crushed Elwin Ayala, Walid Smichet, Hector Camacho Jr. and Purnell Gates all within two rounds or less in the last year and those are some decent fighter.

Lemieux has major power and if he can get in close to throw his power shots he’s going to produce a knockout the majority of the times. Rubio has to stay clear of Lemieux and keep hitting him with jabs and straight shots to keep him as far away as possible. Because of Lemieux’s limited size, he’s very beatable but Rubio has to be smart tonight to make sure the youngster doesn’t get close enough to land his power shots.