Golden Boy Promotions revealed the news today that former middleweight champion David Lemieux has been added to Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Julio Cesar Chavez. Jr. card on May 6 on HBO PPV. For some boing fans, this might seem like a meaningless case of Golden Boy wanting to give Lemieux a chance to be seen by a large amount of boxing fans.
However, if you look at it from a strategic s point of view, Lemieux being added to the Canelo-Chavez Jr. card is a way for Golden Boy to help build up a big pay-per-view fight between Canelo and Lemieux in September. Golden Boy big boss Oscar De La Hoya all but said that the Canelo vs. Gennady Golovkin fight is dead for September because of the low PPV results for GGG’s fight against Daniel Jacobs.
Putting Lemieux on the Canelo-Chavez Jr. card appears to be the beginnng stages by Golden Boy to build a Canelo vs. Lemieux fight for September. You can pretty much forget all about Gennady Golovkin because I don’t think there’s any chance of Golden Boy risking Canelo against him in 2017. Golovkin is still looking good, and would trounce Canelo if that fight gets made in September in my opinion.
As for who Lemieux will be fighting on the Canelo-Chavez Jr. card, he’ll be facing Marcos Reyes (34-4, 25 KOs) in a 10 round fight in the co-feature. Reyes lost to an injured and out of shape Chavez Jr. a couple of years ago. Having Lemieux fight Reyes instead of someone good enables Golden Boy to set up a comparison situation where Lemieux shows how much better he can defeat Reyes compared to Chavez Jr., who struggled to beat him by a 10 round decision.
At the same time, it gives Lemieux an opponent that he can easily beat and shine against. In other words, Reyes is a showcase fight for Lemieux to build him up and make him look good. It would be like a Super Bowl team in the NFL playing a bottom dweller team with no chance of beating them. They would look sensational against that team. In boxing this kind of thing is done all the time unfortunately where top guys are fed stiffs to make them look better to the fans than they actually are.
“I know everyone is talking about the Lemieux knockout, but I’m ready to take him out,” Reyes said. “With my Mexican fans supporting me on Cinco de Mayo weekend, I’m ready to turn Lemieux’s lights out.”
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