By Scott Gilfoid: Virgil Hunter, the trainer for WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward, told the sweetscience.com that he sees a stoppage win by IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute over Carl Froch in their proposed April 14th fight as something that would increase demand for a Bute vs. Ward fight.

Hunter doesn’t say that Ward would automatically fight Bute if he stops Froch but he thinks it will create a lot of interest in the Bute-Ward fight and that’s what he’s looking forward to. Hunter doesn’t care so much whether Bute fights Froch, instead of Andre Dirrell or Mikkel Kessler.

As long as Bute is fighting one of the Super Six tournament opponents and proving himself to boxing fans then that’s all he’s concerned with. It’ll be interesting to find out if Ward himself will be satisfied with a Bute win over Froch as being enough for him to fight him or if he’ll want Bute to still face Kessler or Andre Dirrell.

It might be that Ward will want Bute to prove himself further, because Froch was already exposed badly in his last fight against Ward and it wouldn’t be such a big deal if Bute beats Froch after he was already beaten by Ward.

It just makes Bute look kind of like a cherry picker by going after Froch instead of someone like Dirrell or Kessler. Some of the arguments that are floating about why Bute choose Froch is because a fight against him can make more money than one against Dirrell.

That’s reasonable but if Bute’s objective is to make money at the expense of quality, then what’s the point? He can find lesser guy out there that will make more money but how is that proving himself to the boxing public and to Ward himself? It’s not and that’s why Bute really needs to fight and beat both Dirrell brothers, Froch as well as Kessler if he wants to fight Ward.

If Bute can clear the table of the top Super Six fighters, and beat Anthony Dirrell to boot, then I see him being worthy of a Ward fight. But I don’t feel he’ll be worthy of a Ward fight off of a Froch win. That’s too easy.