By Allan Fox: Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan doesn’t see David Lemieux as a good fighter that he needs to worry about as the two of them head towards a fight on September 15 on the undercard of Gennady Golovkin vs. Saul Canelo Alvarez at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
O’Sullivan, 34, doesn’t think Lemieux trains as hard as he does, and he plans on taking advantage of that when go to war next month. Lemieux doesn’t always fade though in his fights. If O’Sullivan is banking on Lemieux gassing out, he might not be around by that point in the fight. Lemieux usually gasses by the 6th. Before that point, he dishes out a lot of punishment on his opponents. The exception to that rule was Lemieux’s fight against WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders last December. Lemieux looked heavy and over-hydrated from the opening bell.
“Look at David, he doesn’t look like a guy that trains like I do,” O’Sullivan said. ”He gets tired easily in a lot of his fights. I don’t think he can win this fight. I think he’s a one-trick pony; he just does the same thing over and over again. I know what’s going to be coming.”
O’Sullivan might as well be talking about himself when he mentions Lemieux being a “one trick pony,” because he’s the same type of fighter. O’Sullivan is a pure slugger. The fights that he’s lost have been against boxers, who were able to out-work and out-box him in his losses to Saunders and Chris Eubank Jr. Like Lemieux, O’Sullivan gasses out in his fights when he’s unable to score a knockout.
Lemieux and O’Sullivan might end up being the most talked about fight on the Canelo-GGG2 card if that match fails to live up to expectations, again. The co-feature bout between WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia and Brandon Cook is considered a mismatch, and the fight between former four division world champion Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez and Moises Fuentes is another match that figures to be a one-sided bout. Gonzalez is a big favorite to beat Fuentes.
Lemieux vs. O’Sullivan is a fight that is believed to have the most amount of slugging on the card. The two fighters are knockout flawed KO artists with huge power, but terrible stamina, and below average boxing skills. The fight is going to have fireworks from start to finish. There’s no chance that Lemieux and O’Sullivan are coming to come out looking to box on September 15. That’s not part of their game, and they’re not going to start fighting like that all of a sudden at this point in their careers.
”I’m looking at the bigger picture. I’m looking at Golovkin-Canelo, ringside to watch after I beat Lemieux, and I can’t wait for those guys,” O’Sullivan said. ”I’m going to be the one that’s going to win the fight. I see myself as the favorite, easily the favorite. I have to be the favorite.”
It’s hard to say that Lemieux is the favorite against O’Sullivan due to how bad he looked in his last fight against Saunders, and due to his weight problems. We don’t know which Lemieux will show up on September 15. Will it be the one that knocked Curtis Stevens out in three rounds last year in March 2017 or will it be the one that looked horrible against Saunders and Karim Achour. In both of those fights, Lemieux struggled with his weight. You have to believe that Lemieux will have problems melting down to 160 for the O’Sullivan fight. If Lemieux makes the weight, he’s likely going to be weakened by the process of getting down to 160.
O’Sullivan, 34, wants to face the winner of the Canelo-GGG2 rematch, but he’s going to need to fight the perfect fight for that to happen. O’Sullivan needs to knock Lemieux out in such a fashion that it leaves boxing fans talking and demanding that Canelo fight him. Golovkin isn’t going to face O’Sullivan because the two of them have different promoters, and he doesn’t have a world title in possession. Golovkin wants the world titles. If GGG loses to Canelo on September 15, he’ll be looking to get a third fight against him right away. If Golden Boy Promotions makes Golovkin wait, then he’ll likely go after WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders, WBA ‘regular’ champion Ryota Murata or the winner of the Daniel Jacobs vs. Sergiy Derevyanchenko fight to win back his IBF 160 pound title that was stripped from him.
”I’m very confident that I’m going to not just beat O’Sullivan but look amazing against him. I’m extremely confident and I can’t wait for fight night. Give the fans what they want to see,” Lemieux said.
Lemieux, 29, needs an impressive win over O’Sullivan in this fight to help erase the stain from his loss to Saunders and his off performance against Karim Achour. Those were both listless performances by Lemieux. He did not look like a fighter that belonged in the same ring with the likes of GGG and Canelo. If we see the old Lemieux that was knocking guys out left and right, he should be able to stop O’Sullivan, because he’s easy to hit and he’s not used to getting hit hard. Lemieux’s best wins in the last four years have come against Hassan N’Dam, Glen Tapia, Curtis Stevens, Gabriel Rosado, and Marcos Reyes. O’Sullivan is in the same class as those guys in terms of talent. If Lemieux gets his weight right and doesn’t wind up weight drained, he should be able to beat O’Sullivan. You have to question whether Lemieux can still make the weight without draining himself. He says he has a new nutritionist, but it remains to be seen whether anything will be different from Lemieux’s last two fights with him looking weak after the weigh-in.
Jermain Taylor arrested on domestic battery charges
Former middleweight champion Jermain Taylor has reportedly been arrested on domestic battery charges in Arkansas, according to ESPN. The 40-year-old Taylor (33-4-1, 20 KOs), who hasn’t fought since beating Sam Soliman in 2014, allegedly struck a woman and placed a knife to her throat. Taylor was subsequently arrested and held at Pulaski County jail. He’s charged with third degree domestic battery as well as aggravated assault. This is bad news for the 40-year-old Taylor, who had had several incidents that have taken place in recent times dating back to 2014. On August 26, 2014, Taylor was arrested and charged with 2 felonies after an incident with his cousin.
Taylor’s once promising career fell apart after he was beaten twice in a row by the hard hitting Kelly Pavlik in 2007 and 2008. Pavlik stopped Taylor in the 7th round in their first fight in 2007. In their rematch, Pavlik beat Taylor by a 12 round unanimous decision. After that loss, Taylor beat a past his prime Jeff Lacy by a 12 round unanimous decision in 2008. Taylor was then stopped by Carl Froch and Arthur Abraham in back to back knockout losses. Taylor was knocked unconscious by Abraham in the 12th round of their fight on October 17, 2009 in the Super Six World Boxing Classic. Taylor appeared to be winning the fight until getting caught with a big shot from Abraham. Taylor was out of boxing for 2 years after the loss to Abraham. In 2009, Taylor resumed his career and won five fights in a row in finishing his career in 2014. Taylor’s last four wins were against Jessie Nicklow, Caleb Truax, Raul Jorge Munoz and Sam Soliman.