By Chris Williams: It’s looking like International Boxing Federation super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (25-0, 20 KO’s) could be facing WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (35-1, 31 KO’s) next if HBO is able to set this fight up, and, of course, as long as Pavlik gets by his next opponent Miguel Angel Espino on December 19th. Bute, 29, stopped Librado Andrade in the 4th round last night in an impressive performance at the Pepsi Coliseum, Quebec City, Quebec, in Canada.

With most of the other top fighters in the super middleweight division currently tied up with Showtime’s Super Six boxing tournament, it leaves Bute with few appealing opponents to mix it up with. This is where the once beaten Pavlik comes in. Pavlik is pretty much in the same boat. The middleweight division has few talented big name stars for him to fight right now.

Pavlik was supposed to fight light middleweight Paul Williams on December 5th, but an infection on Pavlik’s left hand made it necessary for him to postpone the fight. Rather than waiting around for Pavlik’s hand to heal, Williams decided to stay busy and fight Sergio Martinez instead. If Pavlik does agree to fight Bute, this would appear to be a bad match up for Pavlik, much worse than the Williams fight. At least with Williams, he would be standing directly in front of Pavlik all night trying to trade shots.

Bute is the total opposite of that. He likes to get in and get out and use quick combinations before retreating. In other words, Bute is like a younger, faster version of Bernard Hopkins, who easily beat Pavlik by a one-sided unanimous decision in October 2008. Hopkins didn’t even have to use a lot of movement, because Pavlik just looked confused and slow, unable to deal with the fast combinations from the 43-year-old Hopkins.

Pavlik has been talking about fighting the winner of the Martinez-Williams bout. But the Bute fight could bring in a bigger payday for Pavlik, in theory. The Canadian audiences would surely like to see Bute vs. Pavlik, even if the American fans might not be all that crazy about the fight because many of them aren’t all that familiar with Bute. Never the less, this would be a very tough fight for Pavlik to win.

Pavlik would likely have his hands full against Librado Andrade, who with his tough chin and high punch output, would give Pavlik all kinds of problems. Andrade was dropped twice last night by shots from Bute, but it was more of a case of Andrade not seeing the fast shots coming rather than Bute landing big shots.

Pavlik, if he’s smart, will opt for the Martinez-Williams winner instead. Either of those fighters will be very tough for the mostly one-paced, one dimensional Pavlik, but at least he’d have a small chance of beating them. Against Bute, it would a case of Pavlik fighting someone out of his class both in terms of speed and size. Bute has a bigger frame and much faster hands. He’s also a southpaw who has a tricky fighting style.