According to Camille Estephan from Eye of The Tiger Management, former IBF middleweight world champion David Lemieux will be moving up to the super middleweight division.
Lemieux (40-4, 34 KOs) was scheduled to fight last Saturday night at New York's Madison Square Garden, but he was pulled from the card when he failed to make the middleweight limit for a bout with Tureano Johnson. He was severely dehydrated and was taken to a local hospital.
"We're going to fight at 168 lbs and we'll see what he's going to do," said Estephan to TVA Sports. "Before that, we will take time to regulate his metabolism and identify what is wrong with him. We want to know why his body does not always react in the same way during weight cuts."
It was likely that Lemieux would have faced Canelo on May 4 at middleweight, where the Mexican superstar owns the WBC, WBA world titles. But now Lemieux might have to face him at super middleweight - if that fight is even still in play.
Some of Lemieux's countrymen, like Adonis Stevenson and Jean Pascal, found far more success when they moved up a weight division.
"I made the jump after my fight against Carl Froch in 2008 where I had a hard time getting down in weight," said Pascal when joined by Le Journal de Montréal. "When you climb division, you have more energy and more cardio. Climbing up a weight division, it's a bit scary because it's unknown."
Pascal believes that it was not normal to see Lemieux take off almost 20 pounds after weighing in in September.
"After weighing in, you can take 10 to 15 pounds off before getting into the ring with your rehydration. If it's more than that, it may mean that you're not in the right division. For David, I have no doubt that he can give trouble to several elite boxers 168-pounds," Pascal said.
David Lemieux Will Fight Next at 168-Pounds, Says Estephan
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Re: David Lemieux Will Fight Next at 168-Pounds, Says Estephan
This probably isn’t a very nice thing to say, whilst I openly admit to having no evidence to support this notion, but I strongly suspect that David Lemiuex’s handlers are performing a bit of spin doctoring to try to remove the sheer amount of widespread criticism that their charge has received for his actions last weekend.
They’re proposing an unsubstantiated theory, by suggesting that a medical condition may have caused his severe dehydration, rather than his own lack of professionalism, due to his obvious failure to maintain his own weight during training camp, since they couldn’t substantiate their hypothesis by citing any scientific information or confirmation they’ve already received from doctors.
A far more likely theory that caused the Canadian’s condition, was that his team and himself didn’t carefully monitor his own weight but were so well versed at shifting 20lbs or so in the 48 hours immediately prior to the official weigh-ins, that they wrongly thought that they could do it once again without suffering any adverse consequences.
And rather than miss out on a multi-million-dollar payday and another world title opportunity, Lemieux took risks with his own health by attempting to lose a dangerous amount of weight at the very last-minute in order to achieve the officially-stipulated 160lbs limit.
Extreme weight cutting is a form of unregulated cheating, because it allows “big” fighters to compete against naturally “smaller” men in the lighter weight divisions, which is achieved by attempting to lose 20lbs+ 48 hours before the official weigh-ins, whilst also doing their upmost to maintain their strength and stamina.
It’s often the case that it’s the wealthiest of boxers that can fund the very best chefs, strength & conditioning coaches, dieticians, medication, alchemists etc. that are able to shift the most weight, with some of these guys are even resorting to using PED’s to artificially achieve this goal, which gives them an unfair advantage over their opponents.
Being the bigger and heavier fighter clearly has its benefits! So I really don’t feel too sorry for Lemieux, since he took the risks and suffered the consequences. Especially considering the fact that nobody would have probably batted an eyelid if the Canadian had instead pummelled his lighter opponent into unconsciousness.
On a separate note, isn’t it strange that nobody is annoyed about David Lemieux’s reckless behaviour depriving Tureano Johnson the opportunity to earn a decent payday? I really do hope the Canadian’s handlers or GBP have provided the American resident with some form of compensation.
They’re proposing an unsubstantiated theory, by suggesting that a medical condition may have caused his severe dehydration, rather than his own lack of professionalism, due to his obvious failure to maintain his own weight during training camp, since they couldn’t substantiate their hypothesis by citing any scientific information or confirmation they’ve already received from doctors.
A far more likely theory that caused the Canadian’s condition, was that his team and himself didn’t carefully monitor his own weight but were so well versed at shifting 20lbs or so in the 48 hours immediately prior to the official weigh-ins, that they wrongly thought that they could do it once again without suffering any adverse consequences.
And rather than miss out on a multi-million-dollar payday and another world title opportunity, Lemieux took risks with his own health by attempting to lose a dangerous amount of weight at the very last-minute in order to achieve the officially-stipulated 160lbs limit.
Extreme weight cutting is a form of unregulated cheating, because it allows “big” fighters to compete against naturally “smaller” men in the lighter weight divisions, which is achieved by attempting to lose 20lbs+ 48 hours before the official weigh-ins, whilst also doing their upmost to maintain their strength and stamina.
It’s often the case that it’s the wealthiest of boxers that can fund the very best chefs, strength & conditioning coaches, dieticians, medication, alchemists etc. that are able to shift the most weight, with some of these guys are even resorting to using PED’s to artificially achieve this goal, which gives them an unfair advantage over their opponents.
Being the bigger and heavier fighter clearly has its benefits! So I really don’t feel too sorry for Lemieux, since he took the risks and suffered the consequences. Especially considering the fact that nobody would have probably batted an eyelid if the Canadian had instead pummelled his lighter opponent into unconsciousness.
On a separate note, isn’t it strange that nobody is annoyed about David Lemieux’s reckless behaviour depriving Tureano Johnson the opportunity to earn a decent payday? I really do hope the Canadian’s handlers or GBP have provided the American resident with some form of compensation.
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Re: David Lemieux Will Fight Next at 168-Pounds, Says Estephan
Who cares? He's a glorified gatekeeper.