By Dan Ambrose: 30-year-old Mexican Marco Antonio Rubio (49-5-1, 42 KO’s) faces unbeaten Canadian knockout artist David Lemieux (25-0, 24 KO’s) this Friday night in a WBC middleweight eliminator bout at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada.

Lemieux, 22, has the speed, power, youth and hometown advantage in this fight. However, Rubio has excellent power of his own and could make this an interesting fight if he’s able to get his offense in gear early enough in the fight to keep Lemieux honest.

Unfortunately, Rubio is a slow starter and typically takes several rounds to get his offense in gear. Against a big puncher like Lemieux, whose record is littered with 1st and 2nd round knockout wins, that’s not a good thing for Rubio.

He has to start quickly or he won’t make it past the 3rd round. Lemieux punches too hard and puts too much pressure on his opponents for Rubio to start slowly. He’ll likely be knocked cold in the first couple of rounds if he doesn’t start throwing heavy leather the instant the fight starts. Rubio can punch but his power is kind of overrated and his hand speed is poor. A lot of Rubio’s knockout wins have come against 2nd tier opponents. Indeed, I can’t see one win over a top tier fighter on his entire resume.

Lemieux is promising to come after Rubio early by landing his best shots in the first few rounds. Rubio is going to have to come back with something if he doesn’t want to become another notch on Lemieux’s resume.