Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez and David Lemieux opened the Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin pay-per-view card with sensational knockout victories.
In the opening bout of the televised portion, Gonzalez defeated former world champion Moises Fuentes with a fifth-round TKO victory to score his first win since 2016.
Gonzalez shook off the ring rust well, landing nearly 50 percent of his power punches in the fight. Gonzalez battered Fuentes throughout all five rounds, even causing a cut to open under Fuentes’ right eyelid. A right hook from Gonzalez ended the fight in the fifth round, snapping Gonzalez’s two-fight losing streak with both losses coming to WBC super flyweight champion Srisaket Sor Rungvisai.
In the following fight, Lemieux quickly ended a grudge match against Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan with a left hook in the first round. Lemieux started the fight unleashing everything he had until the knockout came with less than 20 seconds remaining in the opening frame.
With the victory, Lemieux is now the mandatory challenger to the WBA “super” middleweight title being held by Golovkin. Lemieux has already fought Golovkin back in 2015 in a unification fight at Madison Square Garden. Since that loss to Golovkin, Lemieux has won five of his last six fights with the lone defeat in that span being to WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders.
You can check out the rest of Fightful’s live coverage of Canelo vs. GGG 2 at this link. Fightful will have a live post-show podcast featuring managing editor Sean Ross Sapp and lead boxing reporter Carlos Toro.
