Lemieux to try and box Golovkin

By Boxing News - 10/15/2015 - Comments

1-GGGLemieuxFinalPC_Hoganphotos10By Tim Fletcher: Contrary to the public perception of IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) likely to come out slugging this Saturday when he gets inside the ring with IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs), Lemieux is saying that he can’t come out swinging for the fences in this fight because it’s not the right strategy for him to win this fight.

Lemieux says that he’s treating the Golovkin fight as a game of chess, and will be fighting smart on Saturday when the two get inside the ring in front of a sold out Madison Square Garden. The fight will be televised on HBO pay-per-view.

“I’m extremely ready for this fight, so I’ll have to be at the top of my game,” Lemieux said to Michelle Phelps at skysports.com. “I wouldn’t say I’m at ease with this fight. It’s a big, big fight. It’s a serious opponent, but I’m very confident of my abilities and with everything I bring to the table. I know how to control myself and use what I have. I’m ready for the fight.”

The question is can Lemieux stay in the boxing mode for the entire 12 rounds to avoid getting knocked out by Golovkin? If Lemieux is seriously going to come out looking to box and not get caught up in a war with the Kazakhstan fighter, then he’s going to need to stay in that mode for the entire fight for him to have a chance to win.

The one problem with Lemieux trying to box for 12 rounds is that he fades after the 6th round typically when he’s forced to move his body around the ring. At the 30-day weigh-in, Lemieux weighed 175lbs, which means he’s probably coming down from the 180s to get to the 160lb weigh-in limit.

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If Lemieux rehydrates to the 180s or even 175, it’s going to make it very difficult for him to fight hard in the 2nd half of the fight on Saturday. As heavy as he is, Lemieux really should be fighting at super middleweight rather than at middleweight.

That’s obviously why he fades after six rounds. Guys that take off and put back on the kind of weight that Lemieux does are never good beyond six rounds. That means it not be the best strategy for Lemieux to try and box Golovkin on Saturday.

Lemieux would probably be much better off shooting off all of his fireworks early in hopes of getting to Golovkin before the 6th. If Golovkin is still around after 6 rounds, then I don’t think Lemieux has a prayer of winning this fight. He’s just a 6-round fighter, and you don’t beat a fighter like Golovkin if you can’t go the full 12 rounds.

“I’m here to give the fans what they want to see. I’m extremely confident of my abilities,” Lemieux said. “I’m an all or nothing type of guy. That’s how I fight. That’s how I live. That’s how I am. I give all my heart when I go into the ring. So there’s no gray zone. It’s a black or white type of thing. I’m a world champion and I believe I’m the best. I take the biggest challenges and the biggest names, and Golovkin is the guy to beat,” Lemieux said.

Let’s be honest about Lemieux and his statement about him taking the biggest challenges. That’s obviously not correct. Before the Golovkin fight, Lemieux’s best opponents have been Marco Antonio Rubio, Hassan N’Dam, Gabriel Rosado, and Joachim Alcine. Those are not the very best fighters in the 160lb division.

For Lemieux to say he takes the biggest names and biggest challenges, he would have had to face guys like Peter Quillin, Daniel Jacobs, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Andy Lee, Miguel Cotto and Tureano Johnson. Those are the best fighters in the middleweight division right now. Lemieux hasn’t faced any of them.

“I’m going to have to be a bit of everything. Ring intelligence,” Lemieux said. “You don’t go into a fight like this swinging, hoping to get a lucky punch in. Boxing is a game of chess. You play your cards right early at the beginning, and then you move forward. What you do in the previous rounds is going to catch up to you in the later rounds. So it’s going to be more than just smarts and power. It’s going to be a sum of everything in a fight like this,” Lemieux said.



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