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Stunning Upset In Montreal;
KO Artist Lemieux Gets KO’d By Rubio
By Jeff Emond Jeffrey
GYM promotion held their biggest main event since
Pascal-Hopkins I from the Bell Center, Montreal, Canada.
Undefeated David Lemieux (25-0-0, 24 KO) of Laval, Quebec
faced an always dangerous Marco Antonio Rubio (49-5-1, 43
KO) Torreon, Coahuila de Zaragoza, Mexico, and the winner
will face WBC champion Sebastian Zbik. 4,650 boxing fans
came to support their hometown hero in is biggest task of
his young career. Entering this WBC middleweight eliminator
Lemieux was ranked number 2 and Rubio number 3. According to
local experts and newspapers, the Laval native was favorite
to win this one with his 24 knockouts, which 21 came inside
of 2 rounds. Let’s not Forget, Rubio hold victories over
Fitz Vanderpool, Saul Roman, Samuel Miller, Enrique Ornelas,
Frankie Randall to name a few.
As soon Lemieux came out of his dressing room, he received a
standing ovation from the crowd. True to his reputation as a
fast starter Lemieux came out of his corner and unleashed a
hell storm of punches on Rubio, who barely made it out of
round one.
During the second and third rounds of the fight, Lemieux
applied the same strategy, trying to knockout Rubio with
solids combinations to the head, hurting Rubio many times
during the early part of the bout. However he could not take
down the determined Mexican warrior.
During round four, Lemieux changed his strategy and he began
to work on counterpunching Rubio on the inside. Midway
through the round, Lemieux was on the attack again and
brought Rubio to the ropes and punished him to the body and
head, landing at the end of a combination his trademark left
hook on Rubio’s head. So far, he was in control of the fight
and the crowd went wild but Rubio showed his resilience and
refused to fall.
During round five, the tide slowly began to change in
Rubio’s favor. The Mexican strategy started to work for him.
Indeed, Rubio survived the storm and was starting to land
hard blows on the local favorite. The former middleweight
title challenger was letting Lemieux punch himself out of
the fight.
In the sixth round, Lemieux got strength from the cheers of
the crowd and attacked Rubio with savage right and left
hooks. At this time of the fight, Lemieux refused to lose
his undefeated streak and held his lead in then fight. Even
as he was tiring down, Lemieux ended the round with a
powerful left hook on his opponent and has the crowd
believing the end was near for Rubio
But it was not to be.
In round seven everything came crashing down for the young
22 year old fighter. Even with his tremendous punching
power, he could not finish Rubio. The Mexican fighter took
every attack Lemieux threw at him during this elimination
bout. Now it was Rubio’s turn. He threw many straight right
hands to the head of Lemieux, even breaking Lemiuex’s left
cheek on the way. Visibly tired and hurt Lemieux went down
for the first time of his career from a sizzling right hand
by Rubio. He got up, but everyone (including Rubio) could
see he was out of it and was on shaky legs. While being
punished on the ropes by Rubio Lemieux’s trainer Russ Anber
threw in the towel to save his fighter. The end came at 2
:36 seconds of the seventh round and would go for victory
number 50 for Marco Antonio Rubio.
Marco Antonio Rubio took away the hometown crowd and David
Lemieux’s undefeated streak as well. The question remains…
Was this type of adversary too soon in Lemieux’s young
career?
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