Let's not kid ourselves, Oscar is not feeding Lemieux to Golovkin right away and HBO needs to build that fight up a bit anyway. Canelo-Cotto will happen as scheduled and I think Golovkin will get the winner on a contract for May (Canelo) or June (Cotto) 2016. D-Rex will not be in the Canelo/Cotto/Golovkin mix for another year. IBF ranked & realistic opponents are the three guys named in the thread title. Who do you think Oscar will get for David? Stevens got beat by Golovkin and N'Dam but brings that NYC aspect if Lemieux is to go back there for exposure. I personally think they'll go for Soliman. Former title holder, short (re: D-Rex's reach), durable, not likely to win on points so an almost guaranteed win.
Stevens is also short. ...longer reach, though. Dangerous left hook, just like Lemieux. Maybe Oscar sh|ts himself at the risk.
Curtis Stevenson would be lively for as long as it lasted. I deliberately called him Stevenson because I've lost count of the amount of times I've seen others refer to him as that or Adonis as Adonis Stevens.
All good. BE called David "Mario Lemieux" last week. :conf Lemieux-Stevens now truly has FOTY potential. It's 55/45 Lemieux to me, as opposed to 75/25 Lemieux in a hypothetical Soliman fight.
Heiland please! Stevens already got outclassed by Golovkin and N´Dam. Jesse Brinkley outclassed Stevens
Lemieux handled the two common opponents he shares with Stevens much better. He beat both whereas Stevens came away with a loss and a draw (the later being under BKB rules). Not sure if they share any other common opponents. Doesn't mean Lemieux beats Stevens of course but Lemieux has out performed both Stevens and Quillin against common opponents, which is pretty impressive considering where his career was at a few years ago.
Only downside promotion wise is that he's totally unknown where Lemieux's fanbase is or even in NYC if Oscar chose to bring him back there. Agreed though, hell of a fight. ...someone interview Quillin to see if he thinks David is "food". On second thought, I don't give two sh|ts about Pete. Knowing Oscar won't deal with Haymon, it's not even worth asking.
id like to see lemieux vs lee...they have identical records aside from the draw and ko ratio....would make a great fight too, could be held in either country and bring a draw...and they both hold titles...i think this would be a great matchup while ggg takes the other belt, then have a major unification 2 belts a piece
Well, it's not like Stevens has any fans and Soliman probably lost a lot of fans after the Taylor fight (I couldn't even finish watching it). I think Lemieux draws well in Canada. I saw Georges Saint Pierre in the audience for his fight.
Quillan, jacobs, lee, Are the three opponents id like to see him in with. Not that it has a remote chance of happening. Out of realistic opponents, really nobody excites me. They should offer lara a shot... even tho that has the same hurdles as the ones above.
I agree that Lemieux may get a defense or two in before trying to unify with Golovkin. Of the three listed I'd list them as Heilnad, Stevens, and Soliman as my preference. I'm not interested in a Soliman defense at all though. You could probably add Tureano Johnson to that mix as well. He's rated top 15 by the IBF and would make for a very nice fight with Lemieux.
