By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Eric Gomez considers the winner of the David Lemieux-Curtis Stevens fight a future opponent for Canelo Alvarez.
Relax, it’s not what you think.
Golden Boy Promotions’ president wants the Lemieux-Stevens winner Saturday night to face his company’s cash cow after Alvarez fights Gennady Golovkin, not before. Golden Boy’s plan has not changed, according to Gomez.
Oscar De La Hoya and Gomez still hope to make an Alvarez-Golovkin middleweight title fight for September. That’s assuming, of course, the heavily favored Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) and Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) win their respective fights against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (50-2-1, 32 KOs, 1 NC) on May 6 in Las Vegas and Daniel Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) on March 18 at Madison Square Garden.
If those two things happen, and if Alvarez beats Golovkin – a huge if, obviously – Alvarez would need 160-pound opponents to fight in 2018. That’s where the Lemieux-Stevens winner Saturday night could come in.
“The winner’s in line to fight Canelo, to fight Canelo down the line,” Gomez said before a media event Wednesday in Manhattan to promote the Lemieux-Stevens fight. “Obviously, after Canelo – hopefully everything goes as planned against Triple-G – who is he gonna fight? Right? [The Lemieux-Stevens] winner would fight him after the Triple-G fight, because our plan is to do the Triple-G fight in September. But after that September fight, there’s only a handful of guys you could fight.”
Montreal’s Lemieux (36-3, 32 KOs) and Brooklyn’s Stevens (29-5, 21 KOs) will meet in an HBO “Boxing After Dark” main event at Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York (11 p.m. ET). Their 12-rounder is a high-stakes fight for both boxers in a middleweight division that isn’t exactly deep.
“The winner this Saturday is gonna be in position for a big payday, whoever it may be [against],” Gomez said. “But look, what if Danny Jacobs wins? Danny Jacobs hasn’t fought Curtis Stevens. He hasn’t fought Lemieux. … Think about that. Anything can happen. They’re jockeying for position, and the winner of this fight is gonna be in a great position to fight any of the top guys.
“There’s so many different scenarios. Danny can win. Chavez can win. … Danny Jacobs and Lemieux is a great fight. Curtis Stevens [against Danny Jacobs] is a good fight. So they’re gonna need people to fight. So there’s so many different things that can happen, I think [the winner is] gonna be in a great position.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.