Moments ago, it was revealed that IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) and WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) have reached a deal for them to face each other on HBO pay-per-view on October 17th at New York’s Madison Square Garden. This is a fight that is going to be exciting from start to finish. Lemieux is coming off of an impressive win over former WBO middleweight champion Hassan N’Dam last June, and he’s looking better than ever.
This is Lemieux’s big opportunity to take a popular scalp by beating Golovkin and showing the fans that he’s not the same fighter who was beaten by Marco Antonio Rubio and Joachim Alcine four years ago. Lemieux hasn’t lost a fight since those defeats, but he’s also not faced an A-level fighter yet. Lemieux’s biggest win in the last four years was against Hassan N’Dam, who was already exposed by Peter Quillin in getting knocked down 6 times by him in losing a 12 round decision in 2012.
For Golovkin and Lemieux, this will be their first pay-per-view fight. It’s especially important for Golovkin because it could be the start of many more pay-per-view bouts in the future if he’s able to dispatch the 26-year-old Lemieux and look good doing it. Lemieux is the younger fighter compared to the 33-year-old Golovkin, but Lemieux doesn’t have the amateur pedigree that Golovkin has going for him and he’s not looked as good in the pro ranks as Golovkin. However, even if Lemieux gets obliterated in this fight, he’ll gain some valuable experience from the fight and get a nice payday depending on how many pay-per-view buys the fight generates on HBO.
If the Golovkin-Lemieux fight can bring in 300,000 pay-per-view buys, it would be good numbers for this fight, because neither fighter has ever fought on PPV before during their careers. Unlike Miguel Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, they don’t have a large built in fan base that they can count on to purchase their fights through thick and thin. You have to figure that the Golovkin vs. Lemieux pay-per-view numbers on HBO will largely be driven by the hardcore boxing fans of the sport. For the the fight to bring in huge PPV numbers, it’s going to require a media tour around the United States, as well as a strong Golovkin-Lemieux 24/7 on HBO. But it’s unclear whether any of those things will happen. Without a media tour ann HBO 24/7 series of episodes, I don’t think this fight will go over 300,000 PPV buys.
