A mouth watering Middleweight unification title bout has been set for October 17 as Gennady Golovkin will fight David Lemieux at Madison Square Garden in New York, according to Dan Rafael of espn.com.
“In one word: finally,” Golovkin’s promoter, Tom Loeffler told ESPN.com. “We’ve gone to great lengths to try to put unification fights together for Gennady. We have to give Lemieux and Golden Boy a lot of credit for stepping up to the plate. Gennady will not underestimate Lemieux. He is the biggest puncher he will have ever faced, and Gennady will be the biggest puncher Lemieux will have ever faced.
“It is a great unification fight between two champions and the two biggest punchers in the middleweight division. If Lemieux wins, he takes over the spot as the best middleweight in the world, and if Gennady wins, he stays the best middleweight in the world.”
Lemieux said he is looking forward to the matchup of two powerful punchers.
“This is the fight that all the fans and the world wants to see,” he said. “I hope and expect this will be the best fight of the last five years. There will be blood. It’s going to be exciting.”
“What changed my mind and everyone involved is that Lemieux can beat GGG, so why even waste our time with the mandatory? Let’s go straight to GGG,” said Lemieux’co-promoter Oscar De La Hoya told ESPN.com. “He has a real shot at beating him. And this is the big fight he wanted, and when we presented this fight to him he was ecstatic.
“Lemieux is fired up. He says, ‘Nobody has ever pushed Golovkin back. He does not know how to fight going back.’ Lemieux has a beautiful jab, and he is going to use it.”
“Everyone should be ready to have a new man to fear in the middleweight division,” Lemieux said. “I am well aware of what kind of power I am facing, but I’m not worried about it. It’s going to be a war. I know he’s going to come to fight. He might break my nose, but I’m going break his too.
“I’ve said very honestly that I don’t care who I fight, so long as they are the best, and Golovkin is the best out there in the middleweight division. And I consider myself fully of his caliber. I don’t want any easy fights. GGG is the fight that people want to see. He wants me, then he’ll get me. On the 17th, it’s going to be fireworks. I want history. I want big, big things. And this is another big step.”
“When you talk about getting bang for your buck it doesn’t get any better than this,” De La Hoya said. “When you think about the pay-per-view numbers we’re being real here. This is not a million-selling pay-per-view. We’re thinking along the lines of between 350,000 and 500,000 buys. You have to start somewhere, and this is a perfect fight for both guys to start off on pay-per-view. Obviously, we are going to stack the card like there’s no tomorrow. We want to give the fans bang for their buck.”
“We put a very fair deal together for Lemieux and Golden Boy, and the Garden put in a very strong offer to get Gennady back,” Loeffler said. “They saw his success in Los Angeles and they wanted him back in New York.”
“New York is not a very far trip from Montreal,” De La Hoya said. “We expect a lot of fans from Canada and a lot of fans there for Gennady. Without a doubt it will be a sold-out arena.”
