By Jason Kim: During his three years as the IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (29-0, 24 KO’s) has been perceived by a lot of boxing fans as a bitter disappointment due his tendency to face less than dangerous opposition.

Bute is facing 42-year-old Glen Johnson (51-15-2, 35 KO’s) on November 5th at the Pepsi Colisseum in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. This is the best fighter that Bute has faced during his career, and that’s not a good thing. It’s not that Johnson isn’t a good fighter, because he certainly is.

However, he’s not the fighter he once was and he’s lot three out of his last five fights. That’s kind of telling, isn’t it? Bute has been fighting for eight years as a pro and this is probably the best that he’s faced. The question is why hasn’t Bute’s management been trying to put him in with better fighters before this? Who knows, but it’s good that he’s finally facing someone of quality, even if Johnson’s best years are probably five years in the past.

Johnson can still punch and if he can stop Bute from running long enough to corner him, we could see Bute get knocked out. After eight title defenses the best opponent Bute has faced was Librado Andrade, who might have lost out on a 12th round knockout of Bute when the Canadian referee working the fight seemed to delay giving the count after Bute was dropped by Andrade.

The referee chose to give repeated warnings to Andrade to go to the neutral corner instead of just counting. In the big scheme of things it probably doesn’t mean much because Bute fought Andrade in a rematch a year later instead of immediately and stopped him in the 4th round. But the Andrade fight showed that Bute can be hurt if you stick around long enough to land some shots of your own. Bute is good at throwing shots, but he’s vulnerable when getting hit back. The trick is to stick around long enough to get your own punches in.

It’s not easy to hit Bute because he tends to retreat when opponents come forward, and he’s good at stopping his retreats to throw uppercuts and right hooks and straight left hands. But if you can take his shots and put a lot of pressure on him, Bute is very vulnerable. It takes power, pressure and a good chin to beat Bute.

I personally consider Bute’s first fight with Andrade as a knockout loss for Bute. No way would he have been able to get up had the Canadian referee not delayed giving the count. Even when Bute did get up, he couldn’t stand without leaning against the ropes. The referee failed to ask Bute to walk towards him and let the clock run out with Bute leaning against the ropes.