By Scott Gilfoid: It’s now official that Golden Boy Promotions fighter David Lemieux (38-3, 33 KOs) will be challenging WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (25-0, 12 KOs) on December 16 on HBO World Championship Boxing from Place Bell, Laval, Canada. Dan Rafael broke the news that the Lemieux vs. Saunders fight is a done deal for December 16.
Lemieux has inked the deal as of Tuesday for a title shot against Saunders. This will be hometown advantage for the Montreal native Lemieux. He fights well when in Canada, and it’s going to be up to Saunders to try and deal with Lemieux’s huge punching power to survive long enough for the fight to go to the scorecards.
Fortunately, the deal was done between Golden Boy and Saunders’ promoter Frank Warren to avert a purse bid.
“Like gentlemen we worked out the agreement and we’re on the same page with Warren. We want to see this year finish strong for boxing,” said Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya to ESPN.com.
This is not the huge fight that Saunders was hoping to get. Saunders has been holding out for a long time to get a big money unification fight against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) and/or a fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs), but he ran out of time. The World Boxing Organization watched Saunders take two easy voluntary defenses against Artur Akavov and Willie Monroe Jr., and they finally installed Lemieux as his mandatory.
This could be interpreted as a good thing for Saunders if he really is as good as he thinks he is. It should be easy as cake to defeat the 28-year-old Lemieux if Saunders is truly the best fighter in the 160-lb. division as he’d have you believe. But if Saunders really isn’t as good as he thinks he is, then Lemieux is going to blast him out of there at some point on December 16 and take his WBO title.
”It’s official! I finally get the chance to teach this coward a lesson ,” said Lemieux on his Twitter in reacting to the news of the Saunders fight. ”It’s about time I go and get that belt. It’s going to be beautiful,” said Lemieux.
Lemieux is VERY confident about the Saunders fight. Lemieux sees Saunders as a trash talking coward, and he can’t wait to get him in the ring to give him his just desserts in front of the entire boxing world on December 16.
Lemieux vs. Saunders will be televised on HBO Championship Boxing in the States, and it likely will be shown on BoxNation in the United Kingdom. Saunders isn’t a huge star in the UK like Anthony Joshua, but he’s well-known to a lot of the boxing fans over there. Saunders probably would be a lot more popular if he were more active with his career, and if he could punch a little.
Saunders is more of a boxer than a puncher, and that obviously has kept him from winning over a lot of boxing fans during his career thus far. But if Saunders can eat Lemieux, Golovkin and Canelo, he would be transformed into a huge star quite fast.
It was in Golden Boy’s best interest to make the fight happen, as Lemieux has a good chance of winning the fight. Saunders has looked depleted in his last 2 fights, appearing sluggish in his 2 successful title defenses against Willie Monroe Jr. and Artur Akavov. The way that Saunders, 28, looked in those fights, you must consider Lemieux to be a BIG favorite going into their fight on December 16.
This will be Saunders’ first real fight since his narrow 12 round majority decision win over Andy Lee on December 19, 2015. Saunders knocked Lee down twice in round 3 of that fight, and he was able to build a big enough early lead to get a 12 round majority decision. The judges scored the fight 114-112m 115-111 for Saunders, and 114-114. Lee came back strong after the 4th round, and you can argue that he won the last 8 rounds of the fight. Saunders gassed out completely in that fight.
Saunders really should be kicking himself in the backside, because he HAD the opportunity to fight Golovkin last year in a unification fight. Instead of taking that fight, Saunders selected bottom dweller Artur Akavov and fought him in his first defense of his WBO middleweight belt. It was a safe fight for Saunders, but now he’s stuck having to face a dangerous guy in Lemieux, who is anything but an easy fight.
When you have the chance to fight Golovkin for big money and you pass it up, it’s just stupid. I can understand Saunders passing up the Golovkin fight to wait around if he had the talent to hold onto the belt. Saunders isn’t that type of fighter. He’s more of a paper champion at best, and there was no way that he was going to be able to hold onto his WBO title for any length of time, even if he were facing guys like Ryota Murata. The WBO has several talented fighters that are quickly circling Saunders like a pack of buzzards.
Look at these talents that are all ranked in the top 15 in the WBO’s rankings:
• Luis Arias
• Rob Brant
• Jermall Charlo
• Maciej Sulecki
• David Lemieux
With those guys ranked in the top 15, Saunders was going to get it sooner or later anyway. Once the WBO ranked one of those guys at the #1 spot, as they’ve done now with Lemieux, the jig would be up.
“I’m pleased that Saunders vs Lemieux have reached an agreement, there will be no purse bid this Friday. @frankwarren_tv @GoldenBoyBoxing,” said WBO president Paco Valcárcel, Esq.
Saunders is now going to have to try and find a way to keep his WBO title somehow, some way. I don’t know how he’s going to do it. Lemieux is stronger, faster, smarter, and more experienced. The only thing Saunders has going for him is his WBO title, and that’s about to disappear unless he fights out of his skin on December 16. Saunders won’t be able to count on having the boxing fans on his side as he did in his controversial win over Akavov .