In Montreal, Canada, David Lemieux continued to justify why he's one of the most hyped prospect around. He took less than three minutes to finish off Hector Camacho Jr. Lemieux improves to 24-0 with 23 knockouts, 9 of them coming in the first round. Camacho, on the other hand, falls to 52-4-1 with his first loss in several years, albeit against mediocre competition.
Lemieux started out slow for about a minute, feeling out the southpaw. Camacho wasn't able to mount much offense, but kept Lemieux off of him with some upper body movement and feinting. After about a minute, Lemieux nailed Camacho with a straight right that jellified Camacho's legs, and he never quite recovered. As the round went on, Lemieux got more aggressive. With seconds left to go in the round, Lemieux caught his prey against the ropes, unleashed another straight right hand, and knocked Camacho out with an instant knockout of the year candidate. Camacho looked to fall down almost in slow motion, but it was just the ropes holding him up - he was out as soon as the punch hit him. After getting up a good two or three minutes later, Camacho didn't even realize what had happened.
During the broadcast, they said that Lemieux is looking for a title shot in mid-to-late 2011. Before getting there, Lemieux's team needs to find an opponent who is pretty good but who also can stand up to Lemieux's power. Elvin Ayala, who lasted 12 rounds with Arthur Abraham, couldn't. Camacho, who had never been knocked out before other than a referee stoppage, couldn't. We'll have to see what comes next. He's ranked in the top 3 by two sanctioning bodies already, and would be a welcome addition to the WBA's merry-go-round featuring fellow up and comers Gennady Golovkin and Hassan N'Dam N'Jikam.
In other early results:
- Dmitry Sukhotsky scored a sixth round TKO over Aleksy Kuziemsky. Kuziemsky was reportedly outboxing Sukhotsky pretty handily early, knocking him down in the first. As the fight went on, Sukhotsky did what he tried to do (and almost succeeded with) against Juergen Braehmer, going for broke and trying to overwhelm Kuziemsky. Unlike against Braehmer, he succeeded, and got the referee to stop the fight in a somewhat questionable stoppage. On the same card, Gennady Martirosyan won, and undefeated light welterweights Brunet Zamora and Denis Shafikov fought to a draw.
- On the Lemieux undercard, Antonin Decarie got a majority decision over Irving Garcia. Despite coming off a loss in an interim title fight, this was probably Decarie's second best opponent, albeit not a great one. The result can't be too encouraging for Canadian fans.
- In Thailand, Medgoen Singsurat won the mismatch of the month, knocking out an 0-1 opponent. The last seven opponents of the former titlist and Pacquiao conqueror is 12-4-2.
- Also winning tonight: Yuri Barashian, Alexander Kotlobay and Panomroonglek Kaiyarn Hadaogym.