By Scott Gilfoid: I’m giving IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (30-0, 24 KO’s) an excellent chance of beating 35-year-old former WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (28-2, 20 KO’s) next month on May 26th at the Nottingham Arena in Nottingham, UK. I’m not giving Bute a chance because I feel he’s better than Andre Dirrell or Andre Ward, because I don’t see him in their class.

But rather I see Froch as being the perfect fighter for Bute to knockout due to Froch’s low guard, come forward style of fighting and because of his wide shots he typically throws. Froch has never been knocked out before in his career by anybody, so this will be the first time for Froch. That’s something for Bute to be proud of.

Froch is just begging to be planted by one of Bute’s uppercuts with the way Froch fights. He doesn’t have the tools to get out of the way of Bute’s big shots, and it’s going to be ugly for him.

The best I can hope for from Froch is if he tastes some of Bute’s power earlier in the fight and decides he doesn’t want to try it again and plays it safe on the outside all night. If Froch fights like that, then Bute will likely have mercy on him and let Froch survive for the full 12 rounds while Bute beats him by a one-sided 12 round decision. Froch probably won’t like that, though, because he’ll be in front of all of his British fans and they’ll be trying to egg him on to fight it out with Bute. Froch might figure to go for the gusto and try and pull off a miracle win where he fights out of his skin to beat a more talented fighter. That won’t work unfortunately. It’ll lead to Froch getting parked on the canvas soon in the fight.

If Froch fights aggressively, he gets KO’d. If he fights like a timid rabbit, he’ll lose by a one-sided by a 12 round decision. Either way, Froch’s going to lose the fight. He just has to choice which of his poisons he’s going to take on May 26th.