David Lemieux Vs Hassan N’Dam: Breakdown and Prediction

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By Travis “Novel” Fleming

This Saturday, one of the hardest punchers in the sport in Canada’s David Lemieux, 33-2, 31 KO’s, will be squaring off against capable technician Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam, 31-1, 18 KO’s, of Cameroon. Both men will be vying for the vacant IBF middleweight belt. The bout will be staged in front of Lemieux’s rabid hometown fans at the Bell Centre in Montreal where Lemieux is very popular.

Lemieux once carried a hype similar to fellow middleweight Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, 33-0, 30 KO’s. Before Golovkin gained recognition as the most fearsome middleweight in the world, Lemieux, who is seven years his junior, carried the same distinction. He was thought of as one of the deadliest punchers boxing had seen in years, turning pro at 19, and racking up an undefeated record of twenty wins with all twenty coming by way of knockout by the time he was 20 years old. The KO’s he was scoring were of the brutally spectacular quality and, although he had yet to face any world beaters, by the time he was 21 he had destroyed some good fighters like Hector Camacho, JR., 52-3-1, 39 KO’s, and former world title challenger Elvin Ayala, 20-4-1, 9 KO’s, and he was widely regarded as a future star of the sport with his exciting style, good looks and charisma.

In April of 2011, sporting a record of 25-0 with 24 KO’s, Lemieux would face top contender, and future interim champion, Marco Antonio Rubio, 49-5-1, 43 KO’s, in an eliminator to get a shot at the WBC belt held by Sergio Martinez, 45-2-2, 25 KO’s. Rumors had it that the young Lemieux believed his own hype and wasn’t training as hard as he could, instead using his local celebrity status to live the good life: parties, women, and all that come with it. After dominating much of the fight with barrages of power punches that had succeeded in putting away all but one of his other opponents, an exhausted Lemieux had punched himself out when he entered into round six to see that the the veteran Rubio was still standing. 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 that prompted Lemieux’s corner to throw in the towel to avoid their young prospect getting seriously hurt. They hoped by doing so, Lemieux could regroup and live to fight another day, after all he was just a 22 year old in his first major step up in opposition. 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 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 Joachim Alcine, 32-2-1, 19 KO’s. Lemieux’s people must have had a lot of confidence in him by matching him against another proven veteran 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 contender. 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 accustomed 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 22 years old, and some thought 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, 26-2, 19 KO’s. Many felt that Guerrero had the slick boxing ability that was capable of outfoxing Lemieux, much like Alcine did 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. In December of 2014, Lemieux would face perennial tough guy Gabriel Rosado, 21-8-0, 13 KO’s. The boxing world was taking notice of Lemieux once again. 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, in his highest profiled fight to date. 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 for the first time, and showing that his power is 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 he 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. The Rubio loss is now four years in the past and today, at just 26 years old, he is still the youngest top contender in the middleweight division, with a promising future ahead of him, along with Saul Canelo Alvarez, 45-1-1, 32 KO’s, as one of Golden Boy Promotions’ last remaining hopes to become a future star of boxing.

N’Dam is a skilled boxer with quick hands, and excellent footwork, that he used to avoid the bombs of Curtis Stevens, 27-4, 20 KO’s, in his last bout. N’Dam thoroughly outboxed the power punching Stevens in an IBF eliminator, en route to a unanimous decision, which made him the mandatory challenger for Jermain Taylor’s newly acquired title. Taylor, 33-4, 20 KO’s, would be stripped of the title, after a string of felonies in one of the saddest cases to date of a boxer unraveling due to head trauma suffered over the course of a long career, including several brutal knockout losses from the sport’s most powerful punchers at the time. With Taylor in prison, and stripped of his belt, N’Dam, being his mandatory, was given the opportunity to fight for the vacant title against the next highest rated fighter in the IBF rankings that was able and willing to take the fight. The highest ranked fighter was England’s Billy Joe Saunders, 21-0, 11 KO’s, but he passed on the chance to pursue bigger money fights against domestic rivals, as did the second highest ranked fighter Felix Sturm, 39-4, 18 KO’s. With those two out, that left Lemieux as the highest ranked fighter that was able and willing, and after just signing to Golden Boy, Lemieux and his team jumped at the opportunity to become a world champion in just his first fight under the Golden Boy banner.

In his most high profiled fight to date, N’Dam got knocked down 6 times by then WBO champion Peter Quillin, 27-0, 20 KO’s, and he 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 too large a deficit to overcome. Against Quillin, N’Dam showed amazing powers of recovery, and warrior spirit, by continuing to fight well after getting dropped multiple times. 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 knockout and, in the process, stake his claim as one of the best middleweights on earth, while becoming one of the only legit threats to the man who stole his title of the most fearsome punching middleweight in Gennady Golovkin. N’Dam has reach, and experience over Lemieux. He’s very crafty and obviously resilient, so an upset win isn’t out of the question, but he’s got all the cards stacked against him in facing Lemieux for low money in front of his rowdy hometown crowd.

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 early 2016. 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, there’s a very good chance of a legit GGG opponent developing in a 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. Currently, none of the middleweight belt holders are a big threat, they include Chris Eubank Jr, 19-1, 14 KO’s, Daniel Jacobs, 29-1, 26 KO’s, and Andy Lee, 34-2-1, 24 KO’s. If Lemieux were to KO N’Dam for the IBF, then KO a highly ranked fighter in the first defense of his title in the late summer, 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.

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 light punchers like Martin Murray, 29-2-1, 12 KO’s, and Willie Monroe, JR., 19-1, 6 KO’s, that he’s hittable. If either of those fighters had the power of Lemieux, those fights 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. Let’s 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.

Official prediction: Lemieux by third round knockout over N’Dam

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