(Photo credit: Photo Credit: Eye of The Tiger Management) By Allan Fox: David Lemieux (33-2, 33 KOs) made weight on Friday in coming in right at the middleweight limit at 160 pounds for his fight on Saturday night against #1 IBF Hassan N’Dam (31-1, 18 KOs) at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada.
Lemieux and N’Dam will be fighting for the vacant IBF middleweight title in a fight that will be televised on Fox Sports 2. The 31-year-old N’Dam weighed in at 158.6 pounds.
During the face off after the weigh-in, the 5’11” N’Dam towered over the 5’9” Lemieux, and glared at him even after he turned away. N’Dam looked to be trying hard to intimidate Lemieux in order to get an edge for their fight on Saturday. The size difference between them was striking.
N’Dam looked a lot taller than Lemieux, and it’s hard not to believe that he’s going to try and use his height and reach advantage to box his way to a decision. However, N’Dam isn’t a big puncher, and he’s going to have problems keeping Lemieux off of him unless he can move for three minutes of every round.
It’s possible that if N’Dam prevents Lemieux from hitting a stationary target that we could see Lemieux become frustrated and lose his focus. That’s what N’Dam needs in this fight for him to have a chance of winning, because he’s not going to be able to beat Lemieux in the trenches. Lemieux is too powerful, and too well suited towards slugging than N’Dam, who has shown in the past that he has a fragile chin.
“This is what I say to David Lemieux, you can study me, but you don’t know what I am bringing to the ring,” N’Dam said. “You might get Muhammud Ali in the first round, Sugar Ray Leonard in the second, Floyd Mayweather in the third, but when you get N’Dam, he will be the hardest boxer you have ever faced.”
N’Dam’s message shows that he’s going to be looking to box Lemieux much of the time, but also throw combinations at times. Lemieux is going to have to be ready for N’Dam to be changing things up to try and confuse him.
If Lemieux has to chase N’Dam the entire fight, he’s going to need to focus on throwing to the body because that might be the only areas where he can consistently land his big power shots. Hitting a moving target is never an easy thing, but it’s definitely not easy against a mobile fighter like N’Dam. He emulated fighters like Mayweather, Ali and Leonard, and has incorporated a lot of the things that they did/do in the ring.
“We are very excited about the fight, because we are coming in prepared and ready to take home the belt,” N’Dam said.
N’Dam has a four fight winning streak since his 12 round decision loss to Peter Quillin in 2012. At the time, N’Dam was the WBO middleweight champion. Since that fight, N’Dam has beaten Anthony Fitzgerald, Ricardo Marcelo Ramallo, Fulgencio Zuniga and Curtis Stevens.
Lemieux has an eight fight winning streak dating back from 2011. In his last two fights, he’s beaten Fernando Guerrero and Gabriel Rosado.
If Lemieux is able to catch up to N’Dam on Saturday, he’s likely to knock him out. N’Dam isn’t going to be able to take Lemieux’s big punches without dropping for the 10 count. The only question is can Lemieux catch N’Dam?
Official weights for the card:
Hassan N’Dam 158.6 vs. David Lemieux 160
Dierry Jean 135 vs. Jerry Belmontes 134.4
Luis Ortiz 238 vs. Bryan Polley 273
Schiller Hyppolite 167.5 vs. Kevin Thomas Cojean 166.7
Mian Hussain 148.7 vs. Ivan Pereyra 149.7
Ghislain Maduma 140.9 vs. Michele Focosi 140.1
Steven Butler 151.8 vs. Jaime Herrera 151.7
Ayaz Hussain 143 vs. Miguel Antoine 144.5
Yves Ulysse 143.9 vs. Renald Garrido 142.7
Mathieu Germain 141.4 vs. Richard Horvath 139.5
Comments are closed.