The big punching David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) built up an early lead and held onto it in the second half of the fight to defeat #1 IBF Hassan N’Dam (31-2, 18 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night to win the International Boxing Federation 160 pound title at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. Lemieux’s left hook was a big weapon for him in this fight, as he knocked N’Dam down with it on four occasions in the fight.
The scores were 115-109, 115-109, and 114-110.
Lemieux dropped N’Dam hard in the 2nd round a couple of times. Lemieux also put N’Dam on the canvas in the 5th and 7th rounds with left hooks. Each time, N’Dam would get up and make it out of the round with his constant circling of the ring. N’Dam literally was moving for 12 rounds. He showed great endurance in his ability to move. But each time he would stand and try to fight, N’Dam would get dropped.
The constant movement by N’Dam was no a winning strategy. It was more of a survival strategy. In hindsight, N’Dam should have elected to stay in the pocket more in the 2nd half of the fight to take the fight to Lemieux, because he might have been able to wear him down enough to score a knockout if he had.
Lemieux clearly was tired in the last four rounds of the fight, but N’Dam was moving too much to take advantage of it. N’Dam did attack Lemieux a lot in the last quarter of the fight, but he also was circling the ring, and not putting the heat on Lemieux the way he needed to in order to get the win.
The 26-year-old Lemieux was still throwing with major power with his left hook in the last five rounds of the fight, but he was unable to hit N’Dam cleanly because of his side to side movement. When N’Dam would stop for a brief moment, he would fire off a couple of shots and then get moving again before Lemieux could land much of anything. N’Dam robbed his own power by not planting his feet to sit down on his shots. He just didn’t seem to have much faith in his ability to take Lemieux’s big power shots.
Other boxing action on the card:
Ayaz Hussain TKO 2 Miguel Antoine
Steven Butler draw 8 Jaime Herrera
Mathieu Germain TKO 2 Richard Horvath
Mian Hussain UD 8 Ivan Pereyra
Ghislain Maduma TKO 2 Michele Focosi
