By Allen Fox: Despite being badly exposed for lacking stamina in getting stopped in the 7th round last April by Marco Antonio Rubio, middleweight contender David Lemieux (25-1, 24 KO’s) stubbornly is committed to continuing to be all out fighter that tries to blast his opponents out as quick as possible according to an interview at fightnews.com..
On Saturday night, Lemieux,22, has the perfect opponent to do that against in 35-year-old former WBA World junior middleweight champion Joachim Alcine (32-2-1, 19 KO’s) at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. Alcine was knocked out in the 1st round last year in July against the last big puncher he faced in Alfredo Angulo. And in his last fight, he fought to an eight round draw against Jose Medina (14-9-1, 7 KO’s) last October.
Given how terrible Alcine has looked recently there’s a better even chance that Lemieux will get a quick knockout on Saturday. This isn’t exactly a good thing, though, because Lemieux’s short four-year pro career is littered with 1st and 2nd round knockouts over weak opposition. Before his loss to Rubio last April, Lemieux had only been extended to the 10th round on one occasion against an overmatched opponent that didn’t put any pressure on him.
ll of these early knockout victories has prevented Lemieux any kind of stamina or the ability to deal with an opponent that actually has a strategy is smart enough to extend him into the second half of the fight like Rubio did. Lemieux looked great in the Rubio fight for the first five rounds, even looking into the audience at one point early in the fight to stick his tongue out as if to say this is going to be an easy night. However, when Rubio didn’t collapse like a lot of Lemieux’s opponents did early in his fights, he ran out of gas in the 6th round and was taken out in the 7th.
Now with a new trainer Marc Ramsey, Lemieux says he’s fixed his diet and has learned from the mistakes in the Rubio fight. But then in the next breath, Lemieux says he’s not going to change his fighting style and will continue to slug it out and look for quick knockouts. I think Lemieux is going to have a lot of problems in the future because he’s going to face a lot of fighters that can take his shots and outbox him. Lemieux obviously won’t have any problems on Saturday against Alcine because he’s another fodder opponent for Lemieux and really just a waste of time for him.
What Lemieux really needs is to learn to fight in spurts and move, and try to mimic a short fighter like Miguel Cotto with the way he deals with his lack of height and reach. Lemieux is listed at 5’10 1/2”, but is likely no more than 5’8” at best. He won’t be able to beat the better fighters by just jumping on them and overwhelming them with punches like he’s done against the C level opposition that’s been put in with him his entire career.
If he’s going to stay at middleweight, which I think is a bad idea, Lemieux needs move around and fight in a hit and run manner. He really needs to move down to junior middleweight where his short arms and lack of height won’t be so pronounced. He obviously won’t do that, but I think once he takes on a good fighter someday again, he’ll of course get knocked out again and maybe he’ll be open to moving down in weight where he won’t be facing guys with a much longer reach.
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