Saunders vs Lemieux results: Billy Joe Saunders routs David Lemieux, retains WBO belt

Billy Joe Saunders made his way to Canada to face a local favorite, and made his way to U.S. TV for the first time, and he couldn’t have done much better, dominating David Lemieux over 12 rounds to retain his WBO middleweight title.

Saunders (26-0, 12 KO) won on scores of 117-111, 118-110, and 120-108. Both BLH cards were 120-108 for Saunders, finding no rounds to give to the Canadian slugger.

Lemieux (38-4, 33 KO) was outboxed from start to finish in this fight, constantly swinging and missing against the elusive, slick Saunders, who simply dominated the action and made Lemieux look frankly foolish for much of the fight.

All in all, it was a class showing from the 28-year-old Saunders, who was able to bust Lemieux up over the course of the schooling, and seemed to break his spirit in the middle rounds.

“I know what sort of fighter David Lemieux is. I knew what he was coming for. I look easy to hit, I look easy to hurt, I look easy to put down, I look like I’m running out of gas, but you can’t hit me,” Saunders said after the fight.

Saunders also called out Gennady Golovkin, who holds the WBC, WBA, and IBF titles in the division.

“I’ve beaten enough dog meat now. Golovkin, you keep saying you wanted my WBO belt when I was 14 stone, out of shape, and wasn’t in love with boxing. Then you wanted to fight me,” he said. “Fight me now! Now fight me. We’ll see a different story. You’ll be punching fresh air.”

“I was not at my best. Hats off to Billy Joe, but as of the second round, my left hand, I couldn’t use it the way I wanted to. He was on the run, so, I had a little bit of difficulty throwing my shots,” Lemieux said.

Lemieux also accused Saunders of running.

“He was running away from the first round until the end. I guess that’s his strategy to win, to run away from fighters instead of fighting. If this is the way you want to win, then hey, congratulations,” he added.

Saunders owned the fight largely with his jab, which he landed at a 37% clip (103 of 279), according to CompuBox, compared to a meager 12 of 120 (10%) of jabs from Lemieux. Power punches were tighter in terms of overall output, with Saunders landing 62 and Lemieux 55, but Saunders landed at a 41% rate, 18% higher than Lemieux, who simply couldn’t find the titleholder with anything meaningful.

Some highlights: