Tureano Johnson will meet the power puncher.
December 15th’s big DAZN debut of Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez as he dips his toe in the super middleweight waters against Rocky Fielding has an undercard that is starting to take shape. The first fully announced fight so far is power punching French Canadian David Lemieux (40-4, 34 KOs) in against Tureano Johnson (20-2, 14 KOs), a rare fighter from the beautiful Caribbean islands of The Bahamas.
Johnson is a fair, if unspectacular opponent as Golden Boy looks to keep Lemieux in position to be a potential Canelo opponent in the near future. Tureano first became known when he lost controversially to Curtis Stevens in 2014. The Bahamian had a nice lead going into the tenth but was pulled from the fight by a tenth round comeback stoppage for Stevens that many thought was called too quickly, especially given the scoring. Last summer Johnson was largely controlled and finished late by top middleweight Sergiy Derevyanchenko, but at the same time he was competitive consistently even if he wasn’t winning rounds.
Lemieux is a pretty limited fighter in truth too. With the right opponent he will blow them out quickly like he did with Spike O’Sullivan in September as his power is very real, but he is largely protected from guys capable of employing the movement that Tureano Johnson can use. My gut says that the Canadian catches him sooner or later, but I don’t hate this fight. It is an interesting style match up.
Reportedly Eddie Hearn is also looking to get IBF junior lightweight titleholder Tevin Farmer (27-4-1, 6 KOs) back in action alongside popular female titleholder Katie Taylor (11-0, 5 KOs) while Golden Boy is looking to feature major prospect Ryan Garcia (16-0, 13 KOs). That is all tentative still, however, and no opponents are even as much as strongly rumored at this early juncture.
