By Dan Ambrose: David Lemieux will be facing the hard hitting and dangerous Curtis Stevens on October 22 in Montreal, Canada. Lemieux, former International Boxing Federation middleweight champion, is expected to have his fight against Stevens (28-5, 21 KOs) announced by his promoters at The Eye of the Tiger Promotions shortly.
Lemieux, #3 WBC, #4 WBO, 7 IBF, was being talked about for a fight against James Kirkland, but that fight won’t be happening. That would have been a far better match-up for the 27-year-old Lemieux (35-3, 32 KOs), because Kirkland has fought only once in the past three years and that was his 3rd round knockout loss to Saul “Canelo: Alvarez last year in May 2015.
Stevens, #7 WBC, 12 WBA, 9 IBF, is an active fighter with tremendous punching power, great stamina, and always dangerous even late in his fights. Stevens doesn’t look his punching power. This might be a mistake on the part of Lemieux’s promoters if they put him in with Stevens because it’s a fight that could go very wrong for the Canadian fighter. Stevens has the kind of power to take Lemieux out almost immediately in this fight.
Lemieux won his last fight against Glen Tapia last May by a 4th round knockout. It was a case of perfect match-making in putting Lemieux in with a flawed and inactive fighter like Tapia, who had been knocked out in the 4th round in his previous fight a year earlier in May 2015. Lemieux was stopped in the 8th round by Gennady Golovkin last October in a one-sided contest.
Golovkin didn’t do anything special in that fight other than jabbing Lemieux’s head off and nailing him with some body shots to put him down in the 5th and have him badly hurt in the 8th. It was one of Golovkin’s more simple fights because he not only dominated Lemieux, but he also made it look like it was a stroll in the park. Lemieux had the look of someone that did not belong inside the ring with Golovkin. Lemieux spent weeks before the fight talking about himself in positive terms, but when he got inside the ring with Triple G, he was totally over-matched.
If Lemieux can keep winning, he could eventually get a big money fight against former two weight star Saul Canelo Alvarez. Both of them are with Golden Boy Promotions, and it’s a logical choice for them to match them together. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya said he didn’t want to match Lemieux with Canelo just yet. He clearly wants to let the fight build in the same way he’s doing with the Golovkin-Canelo fight.
Lemieux needs to put some solid wins together before a fight between him and Canelo can be put together. If they throw Lmeiux inside the ring with Caneloi right now, it won’t likely sell because too many boxing fans will remember what Golovkin did to him. Golovkin vs. Lemieux did not sell well on HBO pay-per-view, and it’s hard to imagine a fight between Lemieux and Canelo bringing in a lot of pay-per-view buys unless Lemieux can put together some big wins.
Lemieux, 5’9”, would have a two inch reach advantage over the 5’7” Stevens, but he would surprisingly be giving away almost two inches in reach to the shorter fighter. This means that Lemieux wouldn’t be able to stay on the outside and pick Stevens off with jabs in the same way that Hassan N’Dam did in his 12 round unanimous decision win over him almost two years ago in October 2014. Stevens has fought only once since that time in beating prospect Patrick Teixeira by a 2nd round knockout last May. The 5’11” Teixeira had a huge four inch height advantage over Stevens in that fight, but it didn’t save him from being chopped down in two rounds.
One disadvantage that Lemieux will have against Stevens is the fact that he likes to fight at close to medium range so that he can throw his big hooks. If Lemieux lets Stevens anyway near him, he’s going to nail him with one of his big hooks. With the chin and the hand speed advantage that Stevens will have in this fight, I see there being a good chance of Lemieux getting knocked out quickly.
Lemieux is a simple slugger, but a very flawed one. I suspect that Stevens will beat Lemieux at his own game on October 22 by chopping him down quickly in front of his Canadian boxing fans in Montreal.