By Scott Gilfoid: IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (30-0, 24 KO’s) just lost his ace in the hole today with the news that former WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (28-2, 20 KO’s) won’t be fighting him on April 14th in Montreal, Canada like Bute wanted.

According to news from asport.ro, Froch will be looking to have his next fight take place in Nottingham, England in April, and then after that he’ll decide his next move. This leaves Bute with little choice but to go with SHOWTIME’s choice of the talented Andre Dirrell for his next fight.

Bute and his promoter’s at InterBox said on Friday that they would fight Froch next with or without the television support of SHOWTIME, who preferred that Bute fight Dirrell next. But now that Froch isn’t available, Bute and Interbox are left with the unpleasant task of having to either fight Dirrell next and risk an embarrassing loss or choose a weak opponent to fight while they wait for Froch to face them later on in the year. It will make Bute look like he’s dodging Dirrell if he chooses a weak option like the guys that he’s been facing in the past three years. That would be so sad to see Bute fighting someone like Brian Magee or Jean Paul Mendy again when Dirrell is right there waiting to fight him.

Froch no doubt sees SHOWTIME’s lack of support for a Froch-Bute fight as a real negative, because it takes away the money that they would receive from the American television network. Additionally, it puts Froch in a tough position where he would have to try and beat Bute in Canada where Bute is very tough to beat, as we saw in his first fight with Librado Andrade where Bute appeared to be knocked out but was given a lot of time to get up and survive the knockdown. Froch is being smart by opting to make some good money fighting in Nottingham, because he can wait for the Mikkel Kessler vs. Robert Stieglitz winner and he’d stand a good chance of beating whoever emerges from that fight. But Froch would have little chance of beating Bute in Canada. I couldn’t see that happening in a million years. He’d get a good payday but might have had to knock Bute clean out to get a win. We’re talking stretcher and everything.