Tonight on Friday Night Fights, Canadian power punching prospect David Lemieux takes another step up the middleweight ladder as he faces battle-tested veteran Elvin Ayala in an intriguing main event. Lemieux (22-0, 21 KO) is one of those young fighters you don't want to miss. Ayala (20-4-1, 9 KO) has been in with the likes of Arthur Abraham and Sergio Mora, so he's seen good competition.

Also on the card from Montreal, Sebastian Demers (31-2, 11 KO) faces all-action Brian Vera (16-4, 10 KO). Vera is never in a bad fight. Demers was another one of Abraham's victims during King Arthur's run at middleweight, and is now campaigning at 168. He last fought in March, beating William Joppy (MD-10).

On a personal note, I'll be out of commission until Monday, and while I try not to bring my personal life to the blog much, I'd rather explain my absence than not, so I will. On Wednesday, my uncle passed away after a long battle with cancer. He was a good man, more of a father to me than an uncle, and to relate this to boxing, it was with him that I saw my first boxing pay-per-view, which was Mike Tyson's return from prison against Peter McNeeley. As you might expect, it was a letdown for us both. How I became a boxing fan with THAT as my first PPV experience is beyond me. He also gave me a PPV program he had lying around from Bowe-Holyfield II, which I still have. He was in large part responsible for my being a sports fan at all, and more than that he was just a fine person, a good father, a good husband, and someone you always liked being around. He was a golfer, a basketball player, and a diehard Detroit Lions supporter. And he's responsible, via a jukebox in his basement/billiards/bar room, for my lifelong love on Neil Diamond's "Love on the Rocks."

Enjoy the fights this weekend.