Lemieux still an option for Canelo’s September fight

Boxingnews24.com

By Jeff Aranow: Despite all the talk about middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin being the fight that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez wants this September, Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez says that former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (37-3, 33 KOs) is still an option for Canelo to fight after his May 6th match with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Lemieux remains one of the strong options for Canelo.

Lemieux has been given a strategic placement by Golden Boy on the undercard of the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight on May 6 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Lemieux, 28, will be fighting the recently knocked out Marcos Reyes (35-4, 27 KOs) in a 10 round fight on the undercard. You can ignore Reyes’ impressive record, but those 35 wins have vome against obscure opposition and not the best in boxing. Reyes was recently knocked out by journeyman Elvin Ayala last year in 7 rounds. Reyes has also been beaten by Abraham Han, Chavez Jr. and Amicar Egardo Funes Melian.

Golovkin is said to be waiting for the Canelo fight in September. Golovkin was going to take a fight with WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders in June to win the last remaining title not already in possession. It could end up wasted time for Golovkin if his promoter Tom Loeffler is unable to negotiate the match with Golden Boy Promotions for the Canelo fight. We’re going to see. But it would appear that Golden Boy is going to wait until Canelo’s fight with Chavez Jr. is over with before they decide how badly they want the Golovkin fight.

There are a couple of reasons for that. If Canelo-Chavez Jr. brings in huge numbers on HBO pay-per-view, then Golden Boy will likely make an immediate rematch between them in September to take advantage of the interest from the boxing public. It makes sense for them to do the Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. rematch as soon as possible rather than letting the fans forget about the fight and making the rematch in 2018 or later. There’s also a chance that Canelo could lose to Chavez Jr., because he’s facing a much bigger fighter than himself with a lot of power.

Up until now, Canelo has usually been bigger than his opponents. He won’t be for the Chavez Jr. fight. Canelo might still be heavier than Chavez Jr., but he’ll be giving away a lot of height and reach. Most importantly, Canelo will be facing one of the biggest punchers in his career. Canelo is good with his head movement to avoid shots, but he’s easy to hit with body shots because he’s short and heavy.

“It’s something that we’ve talked about. It’s something that I know David wants. It’s something that Canelo is interested in as well,” Gomez said to RingTV.com about Lemieux facing Canelo in September. “We continue to negotiate for that fight. But, if whatever reason that fight doesn’t happen, yes, David would be in line (to face Canelo),” said Gomez in talking about negotiating with Golovkin for the Canelo fight.

There’s a lot of interest from boxing fans in a fight between Canelo and Lemieux. Golden Boy can’t go wrong making that fight take place. However, they also can’t afford to wait too much longer on the Golovkin fight, because he’s 35-years-old now, and he also lost his last fight against Daniel Jacobs. There are a lot of fans that want to see Golovkin fight Jacobs again because they feel he didn’t deserve his 12 round unanimous decision victory over the New Yorker on March 18th last month on HBO PPV.

If Canelo and Golden Boy are going to put the Golovkin fight on hold for another year, then he’s probably going to need to fight Jacobs again at some point. If Golovkin can’t improve over his last performance, he could lose to Jacobs. Golden Boy will have then missed out on the chance to make the Canelo-Golovkin fight while the interest was still there from the boxing public. A defeat for Golovkin against Jacobs or someone else will probably take a lot of the demand for the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight. Lemieux was able to rebuild his own career after losing to Golovkin 2 years ago.

It’s possible that Golovkin could too, but he’s older than Lemieux at 35, and he might age out if he has to wait another 2-3 years to rebuild his career. That’s why it’s best that Golden Boy makes the fight between Canelo and Golovkin sooner rather than later. Of course, that’s if the idea is to make the fight while Golovkin is still relatively young. If Golden Boy has an ulterior motive in waiting as long as possible to make the Canelo-Golovkin fight in order to age Golovkin, then they would be doing what they feel is right to make sure the scale is tipped as far as possible in Canelo’s favor before they make the fight.

Golovkin is not in the best position right now to negotiate a fight with Canelo. His last fight with Jacobs was not impressive. Golovkin looked like he fought at half speed much of the time, and he appeared to be unwilling or unable to throw combinations. It’s unclear if Golovkin was afraid of getting clipped by Jacobs, or if he was worried about gassing out. Whatever the problem was, Golovkin only went on the attack with sustained combinations 2 or 3 times in the entire fight. One of those attacks resulted in Golovkin knocking Jacobs down in round 4.

Why Golovkin didn’t keep attacking Jacobs in the same manner is the big question. Golovkin’s trainer should have told him to attack Jacobs with 4-6 punch combinations instead of having him throw 1-2 punches at a time. By fighting at a slow pace, Golovkin allowed Jacobs to last the entire fight and then claim victory afterwards. Golovkin fought the wrong fight against Jacobs, and now it hurts his chances of negotiating a good deal with Canelo and Golden Boy. It would be better for Golovkin to go back to the drawing board by facing Jacobs a second time to prove that he can beat him without controversy.

There’s no one else in the middleweight division for GGG to fight right now other than Jacobs, Billy Joe Saunders and Canelo. If Golden Boy isn’t ready to let Canelo fight Golovkin, then he needs to face Jacobs again and then look to face Saunders or Canelo if Golden Boy is ready to make that fight. I don’t think they will be though.