By Scott Gilfoid: According to legrandclub.rds.ca, former WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch is now the mandatory challenger for IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute. It’s a pretty interesting development given that Froch wasn’t even ranked in the top 15 by the IBF and now is suddenly Bute’s mandatory challenger.

Froch just lost to Andre Ward by a 12 round decision last December in his last fight, so how and why is the IBF making Froch the mandatory challenger for Bute? It’s so sad. The #1 and #2 spot are vacant as of now. Edwin Rodriguez #5 IBF, and Don George #4 IBF, will be fighting on March 17th and aren’t available to become Bute’s mandatory challenger at this time.

So Froch gets the chance, which is totally wrong. Anthony Dirrell, an unbeaten talent, is available and should be pushed to the very top for the opportunity. He hasn’t been beaten and is currently ranked #11 by the IBF. I think he much more deserves the shot at Bute than Froch.

Supposedly negotiations between Froch and Bute are still going on despite Froch saying the other day that he intends on fighting his next bout on May 5th in Nottingham possibly against Librado Andrade.
According to the legrand article, Froch and Bute have 60 days now to negotiate the fight.

After that, it will go to bidding. The money for the fight won’t be coming from SHOWTIME, since they’re not interested in paying for this fight to show Americans a recently beaten Froch now getting an immediate world title shot against Bute. SHOWTIME doesn’t want this fight because they still have Bute under contract and want to see him in a competitive fight against the likes of Andre Ward of Andre Dirrell, two talented Americans, rather than seeing Bute fighting yet another over-matched under-talented European fighter.

It’s a waste of a fight for SHOWTIME to air the Bute-Froch mismatch when American boxing fans don’t care about this fight. Instead of SHOWTIME giving Bute-Froch cash for this fight, all the money will from Canadian TV, ticket sales for the Montreal-based fight, and from UK television.

Bute and his promoters are willing to extend the originally hoped for April 14th day against Froch to May if it’s going a hassle with trying to negotiate with Froch.

Man, Bute and his promoters really want Froch in the worst way and the IBF sure is helping them get that fight. However, it won’t mean a thing if Froch still goes ahead and fights Andrade on May 5th. He wants the SHOWTIME money to be part of the fight, and if it’s not there he’s kind of cool to the idea. It’s smart not to want this fight unless Bute is willing to come to Nottingham. that’s the only way to fight Bute. Make him come to Nottingham or tell him to forget it and go fight Brian Magee or Jean Paul Mendy again.

Froch doesn’t need to be burning any bridges with SHOWTIME by taking the Bute fight. He also would be much better off not fighting Bute in Canada because he’d likely need to knock Bute cold in order to get the win.

Even then, I’m not so sure Froch would be given the win unless Bute was taken out of the ring on a stretcher. If he’s just knocked down and given a count, I can see Bute eventually getting up after a 15-20 seconds and still end up getting the decision. Froch is much better off fighting in Nottingham and letting Bute do his thing against some obscure contender in Canada. Bute and his promoter want this fight too much; they seem way too needy to me. Right there, that makes my spider sense tingle and I wouldn’t make the fight for that reason alone. I have no faith in Froch being able to fight in Canada and get a decision win. I don’t see that happening in this life time.