By Luke Furman
On Saturday night at Centre Videotron in Quebec City, former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (38-5, 33 KOs) won a twelve round unanimous decision over Karim Achour (26-5-3, 4 KOs).
Achour went down in the twelfth and final round, and the official judges handed down scorecards of 119-108, 120-107 and 119-107.
One day prior to the fight, Lemieux failed to make the middleweight limit of 160-pounds.
Lemieux came in two pounds over, at 162-pounds, and refused to get down any lower. Instead, he paid 20% of his purse to Achour.
His team stated that a move to the super middleweight limit of 168-pounds was very likely, because they don't want Lemieux to risk his health by continuing to squeeze down to 160.
But sitting ringside on Saturday night, was former light heavyweight world champion Jean Pascal, who also fought at super middleweight, and he urges Lemieux to train better when it comes to cutting weight.
He feels Lemieux is too small, at 5'9, to be a real threat to the much bigger fighters at 168 like George Groves, David Benavidez and Gilberto Ramirez.
"David must stay at 160 pounds. This is where he is at his best. He is too small to box at 168 pounds. In addition, at 160 he's in the mix with names like Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez. It's up to David Lemieux to be even more disciplined [in training camp]. And one week before a fight, you must never have more than six pounds to lose for a weigh-in. Having to lose ten pounds is too much," explained Pascal to The Montreal Journal.
Lemieux has been mentioned as being a potential candidate to face Canelo in the future. They are both promoted by Golden Boy Promotions. Another Golden Boy middleweight who was mentioned as a potential opponent for Lemieux is Irish boxer Gary "Spike" O'Sullivan. Lemieux has already fought, and lost, to Golovkin.
Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org
