By Wil Esco @wil_esco

David Lemieux and Curtis Stevens are half-way set on an October 22nd middleweight fight that would take place in Montreal’s Bell Centre. If it comes off, it would surely be a fan-friendly fight between two of the biggest punchers in the division.

So with Lemieux and Stevens both wanting the fight, the only thing standing in the way now is word from HBO about whether or not they’ll pick up the fight. Without HBO’s financial backing, Lemieux will have to instead settle for a lesser opponent in a more affordable fight, as Lemieux’s manager Camille Estephan tells RingTV.

“Stevens wants to fight Lemieux and Lemieux wants to fight Stevens,” Estephan told RingTV.com on Tuesday. “But we would have to depend on TV for that and the TV is not done yet. So there’s other opponents that we’re speaking to given the fact that we haven’t finalized the deal with the TV, and it’s a fight that takes on a TV budget. So that’s where we’re at.”

Time, however, is a commodity in short supply as October 22 is fast approaching and they need to hold a press conference very soon to announce whatever fight will take place. Estephan is hoping that now that the Kovalev-Ward fight has been taken care of, HBO will be able to shift their focus to this fight.