World Weekend Boxing Roundup: Golovkin Hammers Lemieux

It was target practice for WBA/Interim WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin as “GGG” belted IBF titlist David Lemieux around the ring for eight rounds at New York’s famed Madison Square Garden on Saturday night.

From the start of the bout, Golovkin kept the shorter Canadian fighter at a distance with a razor-sharp jab that battered and disrupted Lemieux in every round.

By the third frame, Golovkin was adding hard right hands to the head and shattering lefts to the body, one of which put Lemieux down on a knee in the fourth. Golovkin hit his rival lightly while Lemieux was down and was fortunate not to lose a point.

The sixth round saw Lemieux enjoy his best sequences of the contest as the Montreal man scored with several full-blooded right hands and left hooks but to little effect.

The action picked up in the seventh frame as Golovkin actively attempted to KO his adversary while Lemieux was desperately launching bombs. By this point, Lemieux had likely incurred a broken nose from the hundreds of Golovkin jabs he had absorbed and was looking shaky.

The eighth stanza saw Golovkin go on a tear, rattling off successful combinations to the head and body that had Lemieux in bad shape, prompting referee Steve Willis to halt the fight at 1:32 of the eighth round.

“GGG” improves to 34-0 (31), adding the IBF belt to his trophy cabinet and will now await the victor of next month’s Miguel Cotto vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez WBC title clash.

Lemieux sees a four year, nine bout win streak snapped but at age 26 could bounce back from this loss.

The undercard saw Nicaraguan whirlwind Roman Gonzalez, 44-0 (38), retain his WBC flyweight title with an ninth round TKO of Brian Viloria, 36-5 (22).

Former three-time world champ Viloria couldn’t turn his advantages in height and reach into anything meaningful as Gonzalez dropped “The Hawaiian Punch” in the third while dominating the majority of the action.

At the StubHub Center in the American city of Carson, Donnie Nietes, 37-1-4 (21), retained his WBO light fly crown for the eight consecutive occasion with a 120-108, 119-109, 119-109 UD over former Mexican champ Juan Alejo, 21-4 (13).

There was a good fight card on Friday night at UIC Pavilion in Chicago that was headlined by the first world title contest between two Japanese fighters to take place on American soil.

WBA super fly king Kohei Kono, 31-8-1 (13), made the second defense of his second reign a good one by dropping southpaw challenger Koki Kameda, 33-2 (18), in the second enroute to a 116-108, 115-109, 113-111 UD.

The bout was marred by fouls as Kono lost a point for pushing down ex-two weight world champion Kameda, who himself lost two points for low blows.

Chief support was provided by the most thrilling contest of the weekend, a light heavyweight war for the WBC International strap between Andrzej Fonfara and Nathan Cleverly.

Cleverly, 29-3 (15), and Fonfara, 28-3 (16), threw caution to the wind from the beginning as they both let loose with everything in a real barnburner.

Records were set for total punches thrown in the weight class as Cleverly led in the early going until suffering a possible broken nose, at which point Fonfara took control and swept the cards 116-112, 116-112, 115-113.

Fonfara will likely go onto a world title shot while Cleverly heads back to the drawing board having lost three of his last six appearances.