By Dan Ambrose: To show how much of a mismatch last night’s fight between Gennady Golovkin and David Lemieux was, Golovkin landed over three times as many punches as Lemieux in their fight in front of a huge crowd of 20,548 fans at Madison Square Garden in New York. Lemieux lost the fight by an 8th round knockout.
Lemieux, 26, couldn’t land hardly anything in the fight because he didn’t seem willing to cut the distance like he needed to in order to have a chance of winning the fight.
Golovkin connected on 280 of 549 punches for a 51 percent connect percentage, according to Compu-Box. For his part, Lemieux landed just 89 of 335 punches for a 27% connect percentage.
To have had a chance to win the fight, Lemieux needed to fight like Mike Tyson by using head movement to get close enough to land his big power shots. But obviously there was a break down during training camp, because these skills should have been taught to Lemieux in the weeks leading up to the fight.
Lemieux didn’t know how to get close to Golovkin, and he fought like a crude amateur throughout. Lemieux probably needs to think seriously about dumping his trainer Marc Ramsey and find a trainer that can teach him now to get inside against the better fighters.
Lemieux lacks the arm length to fight at medium to long distance against the taller fighters. That’s why he should have been taught how to move his head and upper body with the bob & weave style to get close enough to throw his shorter punches.
“I told you this was a very important fight. I give my fans and friends a big show,” said Golovkin via ESPN.com. “Thank you, my fans. Thank you, my people. Dave is a very good fighter, a strong fighter. I can box him, too. I’m a boxer, too. I felt his power, but I was strong tonight, and my punches hurt him. He is a great champion, and I’m glad to beat him.”
Golovkin knew how to nullify Lemieux’s punching power by fighting on the outside, jabbing him, and picking him off with left hooks and right hands. Lemieux was winding up on his big left hook all night long, but with Golovkin not getting close enough for him to and it, Lemieux was hitting air all night long rather than finding the target with his left hook. The fight became really easy for Golovkin after he hurt Lemieux with a big left hook in the 4th round. It became a total route after that round.
Lemieux was bleeding from his nose in the 7th, and referee Steve Willis looked like he was ready to stop the fight in that round even though Lemieux was technically still fighting back.
Comments are closed.