David Lemieux pounds Marco Reyes to earn unanimous-decision victory

Former middleweight champion David Lemieux performed precisely as he needed Saturday night in dominating Mexico’s Marco Reyes and positioning himself as a key player in the division’s title talk.

Canada’s Lemieux (38-3) spent the first half of the bout battering Reyes (35-5) with power punches thrown by both hands, cutting Reyes over the right eye in the second round and forcing Reyes’ mouthpiece from his mouth in the fourth.

The remainder of the fight was a testament to Reyes’ heart, as Lemieux claimed a unanimous-decision victory by scores of 99-90, 99-90, 98-91.

Lemieux, coming off a knockout-of-the-year punch on Curtis Stevens on March 11, also found the game Reyes with heavy blows to win his fourth consecutive bout since losing his International Boxing Federation middleweight belt to unbeaten Gennady Golovkin in 2015.

Although the boxing masses wouldn’t accept Lemieux as a September fill-in for Golovkin if Canelo Alvarez defeated Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on Saturday in the main card at T-Mobile Arena, Lemieux is a legitimate contender.

He also could potentially emerge as the challenger to current World Boxing Organization middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders of England later this year.

Earlier, unbeaten South El Monte featherweight Joseph Diaz Jr. improved his position for a title shot either in the WBO or World Boxing Council by defeating Manuel Avila by unanimous decision via scores of 100-90, 99-91, 99-91.

Diaz (24-0) relied on his speed and savvy to pick apart Northern California’s Avila (22-1).

The advantage was evident in the ninth round when the accumulation of blows brought Avila to huddle while being pounded in Diaz’s corner. A follow-up attack by Diaz hurt Avila.

Diaz extended his typical training camp by two weeks to focus on strength building, and while the punches didn’t net the intended outcome — the 2012 U.S. Olympian has only 13 knockouts in all — they did produce the victory.

He outlanded Avila, 127-75, according to CompuBox punch statistics.

“Once I had him figured out, I knew I could keep digging at him with my jab and do work,” Diaz said.

“In the last few rounds, I kept throwing body shots to hurt him, which worked. Next up, I’m looking for a world-title shot.”

The WBO, with champion Oscar Valdez, and WBC, with champion Gary Russell Jr. preparing to defend his belt Saturday against Oscar Escandon, could both insert Diaz into mandatory-contender position.

The undercard also included a comeback victory by Argentina’s Lucas Matthysse, who stopped welterweight Emanuel Taylor by fifth-round technical knockout.

Matthysse (38-4) hadn’t fought since October 2015, when the vision in his left eye went temporarily black from a 10th-round punch by Viktor Postol in a WBC junior-welterweight title bout at StubHub Center.

His return was inspiring as he freely landed heavy punches on Taylor (20-5) early, then shrugged off a head-butt-caused cut by the right eye to knock Taylor down in the third round on a straight right-handed punch.

The abuse by combinations continued in the fourth round, and then Matthysse found Taylor on the ropes with a left-right-left combination to the head that dropped Taylor on his back, his left arm limply clinging to the bottom rope.

“This is exactly what I needed to come back where I left off,” Matthysse said.