By Eric Baldwin: Former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (35-3, 32 KOs) will be continuing with his rebuilding of his career next month against little known 33-year-old Cristian Fabian Rios (21-7-3, 6 KOs) on October 22nd at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. The weight for the Lemieuix-Rios fight is reportedly set for 165 pounds.
Lemieux had a fight canceled recently against James De La Rosa after he missed the weight. However, in Lemieux’s last fight against Glen Tapia, he came in at 160. It’s pretty important that Lemieux stay at middleweight, because the bigger fighters are in this weight class, and it enables him to potentially pull junior middleweights up to the division to broaden the pool of opponents.
Once Lemieux is no longer able to make middleweight, he’s likely going to struggle with the taller guys at 168, and he might find it impossible for him to succeed in that division.
Once Lemieux beats Rios, then the idea is for him to fight in December against a better opponent.
Rios is from Argentina, and he was recently easily beaten by contender Tommy Langford by a lopsided 10 round unanimous decision last year in October 2015, Langford beat Rios by the scores of 100-91, 100-90 and 100-90. Earlier in 2015, Rios fought to a 10 round draw against journeyman Gaston Alejandro Vega. This kind of gives you an idea of the type of opponent that Lemieux will be facing next month in Rios.
It’s not surprising that Lemieux, #4 WBC, #4 WBO, #7 IBF, isn’t being matched against a quality opponent just yet, because he looked really bad in losing to Gennady Golovkin in October 2015. Lemieux didn’t know how to get past Golovkin’s jab, and he ended up getting picked apart for eight rounds in losing by an 8th round stoppage.
Compared to the trouble that welterweight Kell Brook gave to Golovkin last Saturday, Lemieux looked far worse, even though he lasted longer. That’s not to say that Brook would beat Lemieux if the two of them were to face each other. I think Lemieux would have too much power for Brook and would eventually break him the same way Golovkin did, but it would at least be a competitive match.
Lemieux bounced back from his loss to Golovkin by defeating the ring rusty Glen Tapia by a 4th round knockout last May. Tapia is arguably no better than Rios, so it kind of didn’t really tell us much about whether Lemieux has improved or not. Tapia is also a junior middleweight, and not a middleweight. Lemieux won that fight the moment the contract was signed for the fight.
If Lemieuix can keep winning, he’ll likely wind up facing Saul Canelo Alvarez in the future. That’s a given. But it looks like Golden Boy Promotions wants to wait until Lemieux has fully rebuilt his career before they make the Canelo-Lemieux fight. It wouldn’t be a good idea to have the two sluggers face each other fight now because Lemieux’s loss to GGG is still fresh in the minds of the boxing public, who likely will still remember how over-matched he looked.
Lemieux needs to put together some wins over serious opposition before he and Canelo can meet up in a fight that the fans would care about. Right now, it wouldn’t make big news if Canelo and Golden Boy were to announce a fight against Lemieux. It would be seen as a step down from Canelo’s fight against Liam Smith and even his previous match against Amir Khan.
Lemieux has the punching power to beat anyone in the middleweight division if he’s able to land his big power shots. However, Lemieux’s defense and stamina are still shaky. On any given night, Lemieux would be vulnerable if matched up against a middleweight with good boxing skills, stamina and ring IQ. Lemieux would always have a puncher’s chance against anyone, but his flaws make him very beatable. That’s why I think it’s very important that Lemieux’s management match him carefully until he gets a fight against Canelo.
If Lemieux is put in with someone a tad too good, I can see him getting beaten again. In 2011, Lemieux was beaten by Marco Antonio Rubio and Joachim Alicine. Lemieux had his moments in both of those fights, but he gassed out and was beaten. Those fights came a little too early in Lemieux’s career for him. You could see when those fights were made that they would be potentially bad news for the young Lemieux. I guess his management felt that he would be able to win on power alone. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out well for Lemieux, as he lost both fights and it sent his career into a long four-year rebuilding cycle.
Lemieux eventually got things together when he beat former WBO middleweight champion Hassan N’Dam by a 12 round unanimous decision last year in June 2015 to capture the International Boxing Federation middleweight title. Never the less, Lemieux’s good luck ran out immediate for him with him losing his next match against Golovkin by an 8th round knockout n October 2015.