By Steve Kim

On Saturday night at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino on Verona, New York, David Lemieux scored a devastating one-punch knockout of Curtis Stevens with his patented left hook.

This fight was the featured bout on HBO's 'Boxing After Dark' and in many ways it gave notice that the former IBF middleweight titlist was back on the scene.

''We're excited, that was an incredible performance," said the president of Golden Boy Promotions, Eric Gomez. "Thankfully, Curtis is not injured, he's fine. He went to the doctor and had a CAT scan and everything came out positive. Thank God that he's good and well, you never want anyone seriously  hurt. But it was a great performance."

Lemieux, who lost his title to Gennady Golovkin in October of 2015 in a unification bout at Madison Square Garden in New York (where Golovkin faces Daniel Jacobs on Saturday night), is firmly in the mix at 160, whether it's against Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez or anyone else at the top of that division.

"He's in play, he punched his ticket to be in the select few and look we've got a bunch of messages excited about him and I think he made a statement that he belongs in the upper echelon on championship fighters and he's available to fight any of the champions, anybody," stated Gomez.

Camille Estephan, who's company Eye of the Tiger Management, co-promotes Lemieux told BoxingScene.com that while he hasn't spoken to Golden Boy about their immediate future, he will soon be talking to his fighter and his team to "see when we'll be ready to fight. David has proven to be probably the most exciting fighter in boxing, right now or close to it."

Certainly they'd love a crack at 'Canelo', as for WBO middleweight titlist, Billy Joe Saunders, Estephan says - "We'd love to fight Saunders but I heard he's done a deal with Golovkin. I don't know if he's available or not. But in the past he's never wanted to entertain any talks about us."

Regardless, Estephan aims to keep his boxers as active as possible in 2017.

"We want to be busy, I believe fighters who are not active get worse. I'm a big proponent of activity for the fighters, they get better. I remember a quote from Sugar Ray Leonard,'The biggest enemy to a boxer is inactivity,'" he said.

When asked if he'd like to see Lemieux fight twice more this year, Estephan answered,"definitely, definitely."

Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.