(Credit: Ed Mulholland/K2 Promotions) By Dan Ambrose: Bernard Hopkins of Golden Boy Promotions says he’s interested in seeing how his fighter former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-3, 31 KOs) bounces back from his 8th round knockout loss he suffered last Saturday night at the hands of the highly killed Kazakhstan knockout artist IBO/WBA middleweight champ Gennady Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs).
Hopkins notes that the 26-year-old Lemieux really didn’t take that bad of a beating by Golovkin, and he’s thankful for that. Hopkins thinks the fight could have gone another two more rounds, and he would have wanted to see it go that far to make sure that Lemieux was given every chance he could get in winning the fight.
With the way the fight ended, Hopkins wasn’t sure or not if Lemieux would have been able to take Golovkin to the deep waters in the later rounds.
Hopkins already said that he wants to put Golovkin in with someone more at his own level for his next fight. He wants him to get a couple of wins under his belt. But he also wants to see how Lemieux reacts mentally to the defeat. Some fighters disappear after they lose an important fight like the one Lemieux lost last Saturday, and Hopkins to see how Lemieux is able to come back from adversity.
“David Lemieux gave all he could give. I’m really interested in seeing how he takes that defeat and still being young enough to bounce back and be better as times goes on, because he’s still marketable,” Hopkins said to secondsout.com. “He still a well-known fighter. To go 8-9 rounds with Triple G, there’s no rewards for any scars you get, but he didn’t look that bad. But he’s not beat up to where it was a situation of mercy call,” Hopkins said.
To be sure, Lemieux is still a very marketable fighter in Canada where he lives and fights out of, and he can definitely continue to draw huge crowds. If all Golden Boy is looking to do is have Lemieux fight in Canada against beatable opposition, then he can be another Lucian Bute in that respect and pack the Bell Centre in Montreal each time he fights, and he probably wouldn’t even need to face anyone good for him to continue to bring in big crowds.
Look at how popular Lemieux has become in the last 4 years since his back to back losses to Marco Antonio Rubio and Joachim Alcine. Lemieux fought weak opposition for the last four years until recently when he beat Hassan N’Dam to win the vacant IBF middleweight title. If there’s no pressure for Lemieux to fight anyone good, then he can continue to be a big draw fighting guys like Fernando Guerrero, Jose Miguel Torres, and Marcus Upshaw.
Comments are closed.