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Montreal Post Fight Report
By Daniel Cloutier
Dateline Montreal: David Lemieux will go an hospital today
or tomorrow, to check if he has a broken jaw. His jaw is
terribly swollen and the hearts of Canadian boxing fans are
terribly broken.
After his seventh round TKO loss Lemieux said, "I am
extremely frustrated because I was expecting to win & gave a
better performance to my fans. I gave my best punches to
Rubio in the first five rounds, I was sure he would go down,
but he took everything. He was like a nuclear plant! I lost
a lot of energy in these first five rounds then my trainer,
Russ Anber, told me to move and jab, but at this game, Rubio
was better than me tonight. I was mad when Russ asked to the
referee to stop the fight, but he his the trainer, and I am
sure he made the decision that made the most sense for him
at that moment. I am sure that I will learn a lot from the
experience."
Bernard Barré, the scout for the GYM group, and the analyst
for boxing when CBC televise the Olympics, said, "It was
obvious that David went in the ring to stop Rubio in the
first three, four or five rounds, but he did not have a Plan
B. Rubio knew it, Rubio was brilliant. He was suffering in
the first five rounds, but he was patient, never he was
panicking and he won a tactical fight. Rubio was smart
enough to know that it was impossible for Lemieux to
maintain his powerful attacks for 12 rounds. It was not
human to believe that Lemieux could waste so much energy
round after round. Rubio knew that Lemieux would slow down
sooner or later. Rubio, after the second or the third round,
mentioned in his corner: "My chance to win is to force
Lemieux to go far in the fight." Rubio won a tactical fight
like Buster Douglas did against Mike Tyson in Japan in 1990,
& like Ivan Robinson did twice against Arturo Gatti in 1998.
It is a good lesson for Lemieux, who went in the ring with
55 rounds of experience, against 239 for Rubio. David had
only one long fight (10 rounds against Jason Naugler), but
Rubio has been involved in one world championship fight,
seven WBC international championship fights, seven Latino's
WBC or WBA championship fights, and seven Mexican
championship fights."
Yvon Michel said, "David is terribly frustrated, but he has
a lot of guts and determination. He will learn from that
this difficult experience. Rubio is on the line to get a WBC
world championship tonight, and this guy lost by TKO against
Kelly Pavlik in 2009, and lost in 33 seconds against Kofi
Jantuah in 2004. Rubio learned from this terrible
experiences, and Lemieux will do the same thing. David will
take the time to heal his jaw, which might be broken, he
will analyze his fight, see his errors, and learn from it."
Russ Anber said, "David was very hungry... too hungry. Why
waste so much energy in each round? Why try to win each
round by 10-7? David knew that Rubio had experience, and
would try everything possible to go far in the fight. If
David is mad because I asked to Marlon B. Wright to stop the
fight in the seventh round, he can blame me, but I did the
best thing in that circumstance. It was not going fine for
David in the round number six, then when he went on the
canvas in the seventh I was ready to throw the towel. I did
it 15 or 20 seconds after. I still believe I made the best
decision in this difficult situation. The health of my boxer
was by far the most important factor in this situation."
Rubio said, "My strategy was perfect. I was very careful in
the first three rounds, because I knew that Lemieux would
try to knock me out. And he would knock me out if I would
tried to exchange punch for punch with him. He is a very
powerful puncher. I knew that my experience and my patience
would make the difference in that bout. But Lemieux will
learn from this experience. I lost fights, and learned from
them."
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