David Lemieux: record, next fight and profile →
Two weeks ago in Canada, Billy Joe Saunders threw down the gauntlet to the middleweight division with a systematic dismantling of David Lemieux. The 28-year-old Englishman kept his World Boxing Organization middleweight title by scoring a lopsided unanimous decision victory over Canadian crowd favorite Lemieux.
WBA/IBO junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara has fired back at promoters Eric Gomez of Golden Boy Promotions and Camille Estephan of Eye of The Tiger Management, for being critical of his fighting style when discussing last Saturday's fight between WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (26-0, 12 KOs) and David Lemieux.
Last Saturday night in Canada, former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux came up short to capture gold when he was dominated over twelve rounds by Billy Joe Saunders, who holds the WBO middleweight championship. After that contest, Lemieux and his co-promoter, Camille Estephan, complained - that in their opinion - Saunders had no intention of fighting and just wanted to move around the ring for twelve rounds.
Hatfield’s Billy Joe Saunders (26-0, 12 KOs) defended his WBO middleweight title with a punch perfect decision over Canada’s David Lemieux (now 38-4, 33 early) at the Place Bell venue in Laval, Canada on Saturday night. It was the southpaw’s third defence of the title he won by decisioning Andy Lee in December 2015 and a welcome return to form for “Superb”, who has called for a match against either Gennady Golovkin or Saul Alvarez following the win.
On Saturday night, Billy Joe Saunders put in one of the best performances by a British fighter on foreign soil in recent years. The WBO World Middleweight Champion outclassed David Lemieux in Canada to retain his belt, impressing the American TV audience watching on HBO. After landing back home, Saunders spoke to Steve Lillis about the win on the latest episode of the BoxNation Podcast.
Several days have passed after his loss to Billy Joe Saunders, and former world middleweight champion David Lemieux is already making plans to get back on the horse for yet another world title run. When he places the fight back in his head, former world champion David Lemieux thinks he could have did different things in certain situations. He intends to review the fight with his team to properly analyze what didn't work to make the necessary corrections.
Roughly year ago, WBO middleweight titlist Billy Joe Saunders was taking a beating in some corners of boxing social media. He was fresh off a year long layoff, looked ho-hum against a largely unknown opponent, and was seen as relevant only insofar as he had the belt Gennady Golovkin didn’t have.
David Lemieux’s lopsided loss to Billy Joe Saunders on Saturday night drew more viewers than Lemieux’s previous appearance on HBO. Ratings released Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research indicated that the Saunders-Lemieux main event drew a peak audience of 775,000 viewers on Saturday night from Laval, Quebec, Canada. Their 12-round fight, which Saunders won convincingly, was watched by an average of 716,000 viewers.
IF DAVID LEMIEUX did, indeed, bang up his hand – as he claimed after being completely bamboozled by Billy Joe Saunders in Montreal on Saturday – he must have done it taking a swing at thin air, because he didn’t connect with much else on the night.
Trainer Dominic Ingle was confident his charge Billy Joe Saunders would do the business in Canada. On Saturday night, the Champion travelled to Montreal to take on powerful puncher David Lemieux. Plenty of pundits, especially in America, believed the risk would not pay off for Saunders.