By Dan Ambrose: #1 IBF middleweight contender Hassan N’Dam (31-1, 18 KOs) and #4 IBF David Lemieux (33-2, 31 KOs) will be fighting for the vacant IBF middleweight title at a still to be determined date. The two fighters’ management are currently trying to negotiate the fight.

If they can’t do it then the fight will go to a purse bid on April 7th in Springfield, New Jersey, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. This is the IBF title that the International Boxing Federation recently stripped from Jermain Taylor last February due to him being unable to defend the title because of legal issues.

Lemieux has promotional/contract problems with his former promoters after he recently went over to Golden Boy Promotions to join their large stable of fighters. It’s unknown if Lemieux’s former promoters will be able to stop his fight with N’Dam from taking place. If not, then we’ll be seeing Lemieux and N’Dam facing each other by this summer.

Lemieux, 26, has won his last eight fights after suffering back to back losses to Marco Antonio Rubio and Joachim Alcine in 2011. Lemieux recently defeated Gabriel Rosado and Fernando Guerrero. It’s still too early to tell whether Lemieux has improved or not from his losses to Rubio and Alcine though, because Rosado and Guerrero aren’t good enough fighters to tell you anything about Lemieux.

It’s going to take a fight against N’Dam and Tureano Johnson. If Lemieux can beat those guys then then you have to say that he’s for real, but victories over Guerrero and Rosado prove nothing. Those are guys that are very beatable.

If Lemieux can get his hands on the IBF title, he’ll be able to cruise for a little while as the champion. The next best fighter is the top 15 rankings is Tureano Johnson at #11 IBF. For some reason the IBF has Johnson ranked low with their organization? I think he’s a lot better than the guys that are ranked above him.

N’Dam recently defeated Curtis Stevens by a 12 round unanimous decision last October in an IBF eliminator bout. N’Dam, 5’11”, used his superior height and reach to knock down the 5’7” Stevens and win a decision.

The reach advantage helped N’Dam in a major way in this fight, because if Stevens had been able to hit him with his big shots, we likely would have seen N’Dam dropped repeatedly in the same way he was in his loss to Peter Quillin in 2012.

In that fight, Quillin knocked N’Dam down six times in the fight in winning a 12 round decision.

If Lemieux is able to land his big power shots against N’Dam then this will be a very easy fight for him. N’Dam is fast and has a good jab, but his chin is his weak spot. He doesn’t seem to take shots very well. He’s got a good record, but he’s really only faced two good middleweights during his career in Stevens and Quillin. The rest of the guys that N’Dam has faced were more of the mediocre variety. Lemiuex has the size to reach N’Dam’s chin, and that might not be a good thing for N’Dam.