By Cliff Rold

It’s going to be a hard knockout to top.

There have already been a few memorable mammoth shots this year. Mikey Garcia’s bomb against Dejan Zlaticanin certainly shouldn’t be forgotten.

But the left that David Lemieux landed on Curtis Stevens last Saturday night is the sort of shot a power puncher dreams about landing. It traveled about six inches, landed fully flush, and there was no multiplier. It wasn’t one of those shots where the felled man also bounces off the floor.

Stevens was out on the way down and he was out for a while. That was all punch.

That was all she wrote. 

Let’s go the report card.

Grades

Pre-Fight: Speed – Lemieux B+; Stevens B+/Post: Same

Pre-Fight: Power – Lemieux B+; Stevens B+/Post: A+; B+

Pre-Fight: Defense – Lemieux B-; Stevens C/Post: B; C

Pre-Fight: Intangibles – Lemieux B; Stevens B/Post: A; B

The short, explosive affair was what fans hoped it would be. We had a pair of men who can land fight-ending shots attempting to do so. Lemieux got off to the better start. That was no surprise. He is the higher volume puncher. He had a solid first round but Stevens didn’t shy away and was looking for his own left hook.

Stevens looked like he was finding his chances in the second. Lemieux took some good punches, even as he continued to press. There was some speculation that Lemieux might not be as conditioned as Stevens and one wondered if he might run out of gas.

It had happened before.

The answer for that was to end matters before it became an issue and he did. With the win, Lemieux kept himself in the mix with anyone but the last man to defeat him, Gennady Golovkin. Fighting under the Gold Boy umbrella, he would certainly be an attractive opponent for Canelo Alvarez whether Alvarez fights Golovkin first or not.

Lemieux could also tempt the fates at 168 lbs. if he elected to. With Badou Jack moving up in weight, it’s a more thin division up top. The Stevens win is going to make him an attractive choice for any televised card, and he was pretty dependable there already.

Lemieux has shown, and the examples are plenty, that early hype and hype busting losses need only be the start of the story. Since consecutive losses to Marco Antonio Rubio and former Jr. middleweight titlist Joachim Alcine, he is 12-1 with nine knockouts. The only loss was in a unification match with Golovkin and there was no shame in that.

Can anyone imagine a fight like Lemieux versus, say WBO super middleweight titlist Gilberto Ramirez being anything short of spectacular? Would WBO middleweight titlist Billy Joe Saunders have any answer for Lemieux’s aggression and power?

With a win last weekend, Lemieux kept these questions worth asking. For Stevens, it may be time to think about how much more he wants to give to the sport. Now 29-6 with three losses inside the distance, he’s never quite got over the hump. He got a title shot but has always come up a bit short against his better foes and is now 32.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Most of the time, he has made a good show. He did so again last weekend. Someone has to lose. He went out on his shield.

Report Card and Staff Picks 2017: 4-4 

Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com