By William Mackay: Former Carl Froch conqueror WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward watched tonight’s fight between Froch and IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute, and Ward came away impressed with Froch’s 5th round TKO stoppage win over Bute.

Ward said “Uhh ohh! Bute can be broken. Well, what can you say? Carl fought the right fight by pressing Bute and answering him whenever Bute did land. It worked!!”

Froch did a great job of coming back with hard combinations every time that Bute would land one of his big left hand bombs. It was Froch’s response to getting hit is what really won the fight for him, because he seemed to get angered early in the 3rd round after getting hit cleanly by a hard left hand shot from Bute. Instead of biding his time and taking things slowly, Froch immediately went after Bute and hurt him with a series of shots.

Bute then retreated around the ring looking to keep away from Froch. The fight was effectively over at that point, because Froch then flurried on Bute in the 4th round, hurting him again. And in the 5th, Froch drove Bute to the ropes and landed a storm of shots that sent Bute into the ropes where he laid helplessly in the same manner he did in his first fight against Librado Andrade.

The referee should have halted the fight right there but instead he gave Bute a standing eight round. During that time, Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn rushed into the ring and started celebrating with Froch. The referee should have cleared the ring, but it looked like he kind of lost control at that moment.

Froch might want to face Ward a second time to try and avenge his earlier loss last December in the Super Six tournament finals. Froch has said that he wants to avenge it and he knows what he did wrong last time. This would seem to be his big chance because after Ward faces Chad Dawson in September, he’ll be looking for a big fight in early next year.