The WBO middleweight champion dispatched of Lemieux in his last fight but still has a passionate dislike for him months after sharing the ring.

Usually when a fighter is over mutual respect is exchanged between fighters and anything that was said in the build-up is forgotten about.

Usually.

Not the case between Billy Joe Saunders and David Lemieux however. Far from it.

In the build-up to their fight Lemieux mentioned that Saunders was going to be going to hospital after their fight. Saunders is not letting him forget about it.

Speaking to Michelle Phelps of Behind The Gloves, Saunders said:

“David Lemieux is a complete a***hole isn’t he, lets face it. He’s a typical French Canadian (laughs).”

He added:

“When I went to Quebec they were very, very hostile people. They were booing. They were calling me every name you could think of. Even when you walked into the shop, not everybody, but most of them are very ignorant people. Different to Toronto. I loved Toronto. Toronto was good. So I just put little tweets out and give him (Lemieux) little jibs.”

Well, Saunders likely won’t have won over many Canadian boxing fans after that.

He’s moving on though to his next defence this April against former world title challenger Martin Murray where no trash talk has been exchanged at all thus far.

For the full interview check it out here on Behind The Gloves YouTube (hat tip):