David Lemieux vs. Maksym Bursak

This card has been known about for close to a month now, but there hasn't been a peep about the main event. Undue attention seems to have been paid, understandably, to a few of the freak-show heavyweight match-ups littering the undercard (namely Arslanbek Makhmudov vs. Sam Peter, Simon Kean vs. Siarhei Liakhovich, and Adam Braidwood vs. Newfel Ouatah), but this compelling super middleweight crossroads fight being overlooked is a shame.

The hometown idol returns to Montreal for the first time in three years, and is coming off a violent message-sending blitz of Gary "Spike" O'Sullivan in under three minutes. The well-traveled Ukrainian has been toiling in relative obscurity since his unsuccessful challenge of then WBO champion Gilberto Ramírez Sánchez in 2017.

Lemieux is rated #3 at 168lbs by the WBC. Bursak is currently not rated top 15 by any org.

Iron-chinned well-schooled boxer versus a banger known to have defensive lapses. Could be fun...and we could see multiple knockdowns both ways.

 

If he stops Bursak - or hell, even drops him - it would go a long ways towards answering "no".

He may be 35 and may have fallen into a rut of form (he fought to an ignominious eight round draw last December versus Mukhitdin Rajapbaev, who's just 10-6 ) but the Ukrainian is defensively sound and reliably tough; I believe his only ever professional knockdown in nearly 300 rounds boxed was against Nick Blackwell? And that was more of a balance thing, and he got right up and went after the Brit for the next 8½ rounds, and won:

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Yeah, it was a legit knockdown ...but he also went 12 against Martin Murray, Zac Dunn, Hassan N'Dam N'Jikam and GRS (all of them at least as decent hitters as Blackwell is) without going down once, so I see it as kind of a fluke KD, sort of an exception that proves the rule that he is a tough guy.

Granted, none of those people punch like Lemieux..

 

You may be right, the fight itself has been pushed too far back in the dusty annals of memory for me (among thousands others viewed, a good deal of them more exciting and important), but.. found this post of mine from 2014:

 

Of the undercard heavyweight freak shows, that one is the most intriguing/least pathetic IMO.