David Lemieux fighting on June 16

Boxingnews24.com

By Jeff Aranow

Former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux will be fighting next on June 16 at possibly the Videotron Center in Quebec, Canada. The opponent for the 29-year-old Lemieux is still yet to be determined, but it’s unlikely to be anyone too talented given that he was soundly beaten in his last fight against WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders on December 16 in a fight televised on HBO Boxing After Dark at the Place Bell in Laval, Canada.

Lemieux’s promoter Camille Estephan of Eye of the Tiger says Lemieux will be fighting on June 16th, but he’s still not quite sure whether the location will be at.

“Getting ready staying ready! #thecomeback #👊 eottm_boxing,” Lemieux said on his social media site.

The good news for Lemieux (38-4, 33 KOs) fans is he looks like he’s better shape than his last fight against Saunders. Lemieux looked thick around the midsection, and he appeared to be carrying around an extra 15 pounds of weight that slowed him down. Lemieux wasn’t able to chase the elusive Saunders around the ring the way he needed to for him to have had a chance to win the fight. Saunders was on the move for most of the fight, playing keep away and just trying to make him miss.

It wasn’t an exciting fight by any stretch of the imagination, but that’s common for Saunders. He’s a pure boxer, who thrives on making his opponents miss and then tapping them with shots before running away again. Lemieux needed to be in much better shape than he was for the Saunders fight. Lemieux should have been better trained for the movement that Saunders was going to use on him. Lemieux looked like he wasn’t trained well for Saunder’s elusive style of fighting. The defeat for Lemieux put him out of the loop for potential fight against Golden Boy Promotions star Saul Canelo Alvarez. It’s doubtful that Lemieux would have gotten the fight with Canelo anyway, as he appeared to be a negotiating chip that Golden Boy was planning on using to get a better deal for their Mexican star for his May 5th fight against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin.

“It’ll be June 16th,” Estephan said to journaldemontreal.com about Lemieux’s next fight. ”The possibilities are in three buildings: the Videotron Center, Shawinigan or Montreal, explained the developer. I must decide soon, but we must also decide where David Lemieux’s fight will take place. We want him to box, he has to box. We have to make sure it’s not in the same city because there will only be two or three weeks difference between the two galas.”

Lemieux needs an opponent that he won’t have to go looking for, because he’s struggled when he’s fought guys that stay on the outside and move a lot to avoid his attacks. In the last seven years, Lemieux has lost to Saunders, Golovkin, Joachim Alcine and Marco Antonio Rubio.