By Allan Fox: #2 WBC, #5 IBF, #8 WBO middleweight contender David Lemieux (32-2, 30 KOs) will be fighting battle-hardened former world title challenger Gabriel Rosado (21-8, 13 KOs) on December 6 on HBO’s Boxing After Dark from the Barclays Center, in Brooklyn, New York, USA.
Lemieux, 25, needs a win over Rosado to keep alive his dreams of getting big money fights against the likes of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and WBA Super middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. A loss to Rosado would be a huge setback for Lemieux, because it would remove virtually any chance of him getting Golovkin or Canelo to agree to fight him.
Lemieux’s career previously took a huge hit in 2011 when he was beaten in back to back fights against Marco Antonio Rubio and Joachim Alcine. Lemieux has supposedly fixed the problems that led him to defeats in those fights in improving his stamina. Whether that’s the case or not is still unclear, because Lemieux hasn’t faced any quality fighters since those defeats.
To be sure, Lemieux has won his last seven fights, but the best guy he’s fought in that bunch was Fernando Guerrero, a fighter that Peter Quillin and journeyman Grady Brewer obliterated.
“I want to take this opportunity to prove that I represent a real threat to the middleweight division,” Lemieux said via Dan Rafael of ESPN.com. “Gabriel Rosado is a tough fighter and he has fought a lot of talented boxers and has established his credibility. This will be a good test for me and I’m working really hard to deliver an amazing performance.”
Rosado has the kind of punching power that could give Lemieux big problems if he’s able to get him into the deeper end of the fight like Rubio and Alcine did. Rosado obviously knows that he’s going to need to stay away from Lemieux early in the fight while he’s still fresh, because if he mixes it up with him too early, he could get knocked out.
Lemieux has the kind of punching power that could potentially make him a threat to Golovkin and Canelo. However, Lemieux’s chin and lack of stamina and size would definitely be a problem for him when/if he faces one or both of those guys.
Comments are closed.