David Lemieux: Star Quality and a Legit Threat to Gennady “GGG” Golovkin

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By Travis Fleming

Sometime in late May, Canadian knockout artist David Lemieux will be fighting slickster Hassan N’Dam for the IBF middleweight championship of the world, which was stripped from Jermain Taylor after his recent bizarre unraveling and trouble with the law. On paper, this a great fight featuring two top ten middleweights battling it out to have their names mentioned alongside the likes of Gennady Golovkin, Peter Quillin, Danny Jacobs and Andy Lee. The winner of this fight will emerge as a legit contender for anyone in the division, especially if it ends up being David Lemieux via the spectacular type of knockout blows we have grown accustomed to seeing from the young Canadian slugger. David Lemieux has the potential to be a star in the boxing world. He’s got a fan friendly style, insane power in both hands, he’s charismatic, and he’s got the full support of Golden Boy Promotions behind him as one of their only top level talents with potential to be a big money fighter. He’s also got an underrated skill set, fast hands and a big bag of tricks. He’s got a bit of a resemblance to Oscar De La Hoya and has been receiving praise from De La Hoya since as far back as 2010 when Lemieux was signed to Montreal based GYM Promotions. Back in 2010, Oscar said that David had star quality and will become a huge name in the sport of boxing, so when Lemieux became available earlier this year, Oscar jumped at the opportunity to sign him to Golden Boy Promotions with hopes of reviving the once prominent promotions company by creating a new marquee fighter in Lemieux.

The move to Golden Boy was a wise one for Lemieux as he is now one of their highest priorities, aside from Canelo Alvarez, and within just a month of signing with Golden Boy, they have maneuvered him into a world title shot. It’s clear that Oscar is trying to build Lemieux up to be seen as a threat in the form of an opponent for GGG and even Canelo in the future. Before that can happen, Lemieux must erase the memories of the last fight where he was supposed to emerge as the next big star back in 2011 when he suffered his first loss as a 22 year old kid to veteran Marco Antonio Rubio in a huge upset. Lemieux was an outstanding amateur boxer under the tutelage of legendary Canadian boxing trainer, and analyst, Russ Anber. He won three national amateur championships but skipped out on trying to make the 2008 Beijing Olympics due to the state of the poorly under supported Canadian Olympic boxing program.

As a kid, Lemieux was already seen by young fighters everywhere in Russ Anbers widely circulated boxing tutorial DVD series “Title Boxing”. Having a style that was better suited to the pro ranks, Lemieux would attempt to turn pro at just seventeen but was forced to wait until his eighteenth birthday due to regulations by the Canadian Boxing Commission. GYM Promotions, out of Quebec, were quick to see a rising star in Lemieux and wasted no time signing the youngster to a multi fight contract. Within just a few months of his eighteenth birthday, in April of 2007, Lemieux would make his professional debut, winning by TKO in round number two against another rookie to the paid ranks. From there he would have a number of four round, and eight round, bouts while gradually improving his level of opposition. He became a fan favorite in Montreal for his brutal knockout power that he used in electrifying fashion to rack up a record of eighteen wins against zero losses with all eighteen wins coming by way of knockout at just 21 years old! He was starting to get noticed in the boxing world as one of the hardest punchers in the game and most fans pegged him to be a future world champion. In December of 2009, Lemieux would fight journeyman Delray Raines in his first bout scheduled for ten rounds. Raines had gone the distance with some top ranked opposition, so he was expected to give Lemieux some much needed rounds as the longest David had gone up until that point was four rounds before scoring a knockout. Raines would not live up to these hopes as Lemieux took him out in the second round. In his next fight, Lemieux would face journeyman Jason Naugler in his second straight bout scheduled for ten rounds. Naugler had taken several top names the distance, including light heavyweight king Chad Dawson, and he would be the first to take Lemieux to the final bell. At twenty fights, Lemieux’s incredible knockout streak was over but he did manage to win every round and notch another victory on his way up the rankings.

Next, Lemieux would return to putting opponents’ lights out by destroying veteran Walid Smichet in the second round. He would follow that with his most impressive win to date over former world title challenger Elvin Ayala, who had previously made it to round twelve against one of boxing’s hardest punchers in Artur Abraham. Lemieux would one up Abraham with a brutal first round knockout of Ayala, putting the boxing world on notice. At only 22 years old, Lemieux was now rising in the rankings, on his way to getting a title shot, and appearing regularly on ESPN’s Friday Night Fights. In October of 2011 he would fight on ESPN in his most publicized fight to date against the son of a legend Hector Camacho Jr. Lemieux would brutally knockout Camacho Jr in the first round and capture the attention of the boxing world in the process. He would close out 2010 with a second round stoppage of Purnell Gates who was sporting a record of 18-1. The boxing public were excited to see Lemieux work his way into a title shot in 2011 and they were expecting big things of the dynamic 23 year old with the impressive record of 25-0 with 24 KO’s. The hype surrounding Lemieux at that time was much like that which currently surrounds GGG.

He was a wrecking machine, destroying everyone put in front of him. In early 2011 it was announced that Lemieux had signed to face former world title challenger, and highly ranked, Marco Antonio Rubio in his first bout scheduled for twelve rounds. A win against Rubio would propel Lemieux up the rankings and put him in a position to challenge for a world title later in the year. Rubio is a tough customer with big power himself and a lot of experience against highly ranked fighters and champions. Lemieux came out fighting at a very high pace and battered Rubio for five one sided rounds. He hurt Rubio but couldn’t put him down and, by round six, Lemieux, not expecting his foe to withstand his onslaught, started to tire from the torrid pace. In round six, Rubio would start finding his mark on a fatigued Lemieux and by round seven he was teeing off on the spent youngster. Rubio would drop Lemieux in the seventh round and follow up with a flurry of hard punches which caused Lemieux’s corner to throw in the towel and stop the fight in order to avoid an unnecessary injury to a young talent that had nothing left in the tank. The loss showed that, although he was very talented and powerful, he had to work on his conditioning, on pacing himself and on his defense.

If he had paced himself for the full twelve rounds he would have likely outclassed Rubio, but he wanted the knockout and risked using all his energy to get it. Regardless, it was a valuable lesson for a young man and Lemieux was young enough to learn from the mistake and come back a better fighter. It was a massive upset and a setback that would require a few more years of seasoning before attempting another run at a world title. Later in 2011, Lemieux would face former world champion Joachime Alcine. Lemieuxs promoter must have had a lot of confidence in him by matching him against another highly ranked opponent so soon after suffering his first defeat. Most promoters would have given Lemieux a few soft touches to get his confidence back before putting him against another top level operator. In an extremely lackluster effort, an unmotivated Lemieux dropped a 10 round split decision suffering the second loss of his career directly after his first. Some felt Lemieux deserved the decision, but it was clear to all that Lemieux didn’t fight with the same fire people were used to seeing from him. At this point, it was obvious Lemieux needed some serious improvement if he was ever going to come back to challenge for a world title. The good news was that he was still only 23 years old and some though that, perhaps under a new trainer, he could patch some of the chinks in his armor. Others completely wrote him off as an overhyped power puncher.

Lemieux would go back to the drawing board and attempt to revive his career in 2012. He would fight three times in 2012 against journeymen, returning to his winning ways with three knockout victories. In 2013, he would also fight three times winning all three bouts, two of them by knockout, extending his record to 31-2 with 29 knockouts. Confident that he had fixed the holes in holes in game and become better at pacing himself when the knockout doesn’t come, a reinvigorated Lemieux would make another run at a title shot in 2014. In May, he would face one of his best opponents to date in former title challenger Fernando Guerrero. Many felt that Guerrero had the slick boxing ability capable of outfoxing Lemieux, much like Alcine a few years earlier. In the most impressive display of his young career, Lemieux would knock out Guerrero in the third round and climb in the rankings once again. In December of 2014, Lemieux would face perennial tough guy Gabriel Rosado. The boxing world was taking notice of Lemieux once again and Lemieux versus Rosado would be staged in Brooklyn, New York and aired on HBO as the headlining bout of the “Boxing After Dark” series. This was the most exposure Lemieux was ever afforded and his highest profiled fight. He had to impress if he wanted fans to believe he could come back and rise to the top of the division. Rosado is an insanely tough man, he has faced some excellent opposition, beaten top tiered fighters and taken a hellacious beating from GGG in challenging for his world title in 2013. Rosado was stopped on cuts but refused to go down from the power of GGG. Lemieux rose to the occasion and outclassed Rosado while one upping GGG by putting Rosado down on the canvass and showing that his power is legit and comparable to that of Golovkin’s. Lemieux beat Rosado in the biggest win of his career by TKO in round ten. He showed he has learned how to pace himself and set the stage to challenge for a world title in 2015. Rosado had a lot of similarities to Rubio, while Guerrero had a lot of similarities to Alcine. In beating them both, Lemieux proved to critics that had the two men that beat him faced this improved version of Lemieux, he would likely still be an undefeated fighter.

With fans raving about him once again, at still just 26 years old, Lemieux would begin 2015 by making the biggest move of his career. Lemieux would leave his Canadian promoters in hopes of achieving a world title shot, bigger fights and american television exposure by signing with Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions. Within just a couple months, they would have Lemieux lined up to fight for a world title. After Jermain Taylor was stripped of his IBF title, the IBF ordered that top ranked, and former world champion, Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam would fight their next highest rated, and available, fighter for the vacant title. The highest rated was former champion Felix Sturm but he declined the title shot as he had moved up to the super middleweight division with hopes of facing Artur Abraham in a big money, all German showdown. Next highest rated was England’s Billy Joe Saunders but he opted to wait on bigger money against the winner of Andy Lee vs Peter Quillin for the WBO middleweight title. That left Lemieux as the next highest rated man and he accepted the challenge to fight for his first world title. N’Dam would have been much better off facing an aging Sturm or the light hitting Billy Joe Saunders. N’Dam has twice held interim world championships at middleweight. He has defeated some good opposition and has the experience edge over Lemieux. He just outclassed power punching, former world title challenger, Curtis Stevens to earn his title shot.

N’Dam is a skilled boxer with quick hands and excellent footwork that he used to avoid the bombs of Curtis Stevens. In his most high profiled fight to date, N’Dam got knocked down 6 times by then WBO champion Peter Quillin and managed to not only survive, but actually win more rounds than Quillin by the time the final bell rang. Had he not suffered so many knockdowns, N’Dam would have won the fight, but losing 6 points to knockdowns is a large deficit to overcome. Against Quillin, N’Dam showed a lot of heart and warrior spirit by continuing to fight well after getting dropped. N’Dam also displayed his high level skill set and his ability to perform under fire. Unfortunately, the most memorable thing he showed was that he can be hurt if you catch him and that doesn’t bode well for him against the likes of Lemieux. Expect the new and improved David Lemieux to shine in his first world title fight.

Lemieux will cut the ring off and deliver a concussive blow to N’Dam and, unlike he did against Quillin, N’Dam won’t be getting up from a clean shot delivered by the heavy handed Canadian. Lemieux should win this one by brutal knockout and, in the process, stake his claim as one of the best middleweights on earth and one of the only legit threats to the man who stole his title of the most fearsome punching middleweight in Gennady Golovkin. Lemieux, unlike the rest of the middleweight division has stated he would love to fight GGG and he could very well emerge as the biggest threat and most legitimate opponent for GGG by late 2015. Golovkin is desperate for a big win and it seems that the only people that are able to give him that chance are fighters who refuse to fight him like Miguel Cotto and Peter Quillin. Essentially, unless he moves up to super middleweight, GGG is just going to have to hope that some new threat emerges, or moves up from junior middleweight. In Lemieux, theres a very good chance of a legit GGG opponent developing in shorter time than expected.

If Golden Boy handles him correctly, they will have Lemieux fight two more times in 2015 before angling him towards a GGG fight in early 2016. By the end of 2015, if all goes well, Lemieux should be unifying his IBF title with one of the other middleweight champions to create hype and more leverage for a showdown for all the marbles against GGG. If Lemieux were to KO N’Dam for the IBF in May, then KO a highly ranked fighter in his first defense of his title in the summer, and then win a unification fight against one of the other middleweight champions later in the year, he will be seen as the best opponent available for GGG and fans will be calling for the fight to get made. 2016 could see one of the most vicious fights in recent memory if Lemieux vs GGG comes to fruition. Two of the hardest punchers in the sport duking it out for the right to claim king. You would have to give the edge to Golovkin but if Lemieux has a successful 2015 he might change some minds.

Remember that prior to his losses, Lemieux was viewed by fans as having the very same boogeyman aura that GGG currently gets marveled at for having. GGG seems to be the more complete fighter and the higher skilled operator but Lemieux certainly hits just as hard and GGG showed us versus Martin Murray that he’s hittable. If Murray had the power of Lemieux that fight could have been very different. When fighters hit as hard as GGG and Lemieux, all it takes is one punch and it would be foolish to completely write off Lemieux’s punchers chance if he ever got in the ring with Golovkin. Lets pray that all goes according to plans for team Lemieux and that we get blessed with this brutal dream fight in 2016 when the demand is there.