By Jeff Aranow: David Lemieux’s impressive 3rd round knockout of Curtis Stevens last Saturday might make it more difficiult for him to get a big fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Lemieux (37-3, 33 KOs) mentioned wanting to take a fight against the 26-year-old Canelo (48-1-1, 34 KOs) before he faces IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in a rematch to avenge his loss to him from 2015.
HBO boxing analyst Jim Lampley says he think Lemieux’s performance against Stevens may move him further away from a big fight against Canelo because the Golden Boy Promotions start might see it as a risky fight for him to take. That would be troubling if Cabnelo and his promoters decided that Lemieux was too dangerous to fight. How would Canelo be able to fight in the middleweight division if he can’t even fight Lemieux. If he’s not going to fight Lemieux and Gennady Golovkin, it would marginalize him with the boxing fans. There are only so many fights against guys like Liam Smith and Amir Khan that Canelo can take before the boxing fans start to see him as ducking the best.
“You look at that and you understand why Golovkin threw 50 days in the 1st round and fought him in a technical fight,” said HBO boxing analyst Jim Lampley to Thatboxingvoice.com about Lemieux. “Gennady knew that there was danger in fighting David Lemieux. The danger is if you square up and face him. Gennady didn’t let that happen. He turned this way and threw the jab, kept Lemieux under control and won the fight. I’m sure he’d do the same thing again if they fought again. Lemieux wants a fight with Canelo Alvarez. I’m not sure he helped himself. That kind of power, you just don’t see,” said Lampley.
Just going by the type of fights that Canelo has been matched against by Golden Boy in the last 3 years, I find it hard to believe that they’ll want to risk their golden goose by throwing him inside the ring with the 28-year-old Lemieux. The problem with Lemieux is he’s someone that can score a knockout at any time even if Canelo is dominating him.
Canelo doesn’t even have the boxing skills to dominate a fighter like Lemieux without getting hit an awful lot. In looking at how much punishment Canelo absorbed in his last fight against Liam Smith, he’s going to get tagged a lot by Lemieux if he takes that fight. Canelo was trying to box Liam Smith, but he couldn’t do it, because the British fighter was staying close to him the entire time, and not giving him any space to play it safe on the outside.
Smith ended up backing Canelo to the ropes repeatedly in the fight and landing a lot of hard punches. The boxing fans mostly remember the ending of the fight in the 9th round when Canelo scored a sudden knockout. The fans forget how competitive the fight was and how frequently Canelo was hit. If you substitute Lemieux inside the ring in place of Liam Smith on that fight, we might have seen Canelo get knocked out just like Curtis Stevens.
Canelo doesn’t have the jab or the reach to box Lemieux the way Golovkin did. Canelo throws mostly wide punches rather than straight ones. He would have to brawl with Lemieux in order to beat him. In a fight like that, it would be a toss-up. I don’t think Golden Boy will want to risk Canelo getting knocked out in a fight that wouldn’t generate a lot of money. If Canelo fought Lemieux, he and Golden Boy would possibly use a catch-weight of 155 lbs. to weaken him.
“Billy Joe Saunders has a middleweight title. Lemieux wants to win a middleweight title again,” said Lampley. “While Canelo and Golovkin are focusing on each other, he might have to go fight Saunders to get a chance at winning a title belt. Once he [Lemieux] has world title belt, he can get another chance at Golovkin, because Golovkin has made it very clear that he wants to win all of the belts before he leaves the division,” said Lampley.
Lemieux’s promoters will need to lure Saunders in a big way for him to want to take a fight against Lemieux, because it’s a risky one for him to take. Lemieux isn’t a world champion like Golovkin, and he’s not hugely popular the way that Canelo is. Moreover, Lemieux isn’t rated No.1 by the World Boxing Organization at middleweight. The WBO ordered Saunders to fight back to back mandatory defenses recently. Lemieux isn’t rated in the WBO’s top 15 at this time. There’s no way he can get a fight against Saunders unless the WBO decides to let that fight take place. I don’t think they will.
Speaking about Canelo, Lampley said, “Why would he want to take a fight against David Lemieux after watching this. He wants to fight Canelo, and there’s every reason in the world to want that. He has a serious situation on his hands with Daniel Jacobs next week. Daniel Jacobs is not a walkover for him though. Logic is that Golovkin wins that fight. He’s certainly the favorite. Gennady Golovkin, in his mind, I’m sure he’s thinking, I’m focused on Jacobs next week and then fight Canelo in the fall and I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to do with David Lemieux until he sees where he goes from there.’ Saunders won’t fight Lemieux. He’ll get bigger money fighting Golovkin.
Maybe Golovkin does get his chance to win all the belts in the division, which is the goal. My middleweight wish is Golovkin vs. Canelo, because I’ve already seen Golovkin vs. Lemieux. Just because of what we just saw doesn’t mean the fight is going to be any different, because Golovkin has already showed us that he’ll force Lemieux to fight a technical boxing match. I still want to see it again. There’s no reason not to want to see it again,” said Lampley about the Golovkin vs. Lemeiux fight.
