By Sean McDaniel: Former two time WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (29-2, 21 KO’s) could do nothing wrong last night in his fight against IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (30-1, 24 KO’s). Froch bludgeoned the champion Bute, chopping him down in five brutally one-sided rounds at the Nottingham Arena in front of 9000 fans.

Froch fought well for the first two rounds controlling the action with fight hands against a wary Bute. You could see even then that Bute was going to have problems because he had no answer for Froch’s long jab and his hard right hand that he’d pump in over and over again. Bute tried pawing at Froch with a jab, but it didn’t have any effect in changing his forward progress.

In the 3rd round, the fight broken open after Bute hit Froch with a series of left hands. After one particularly hard left hand from Bute, Froch seemed to take issue with it because he came rushing forward throwing a blizzard of shots. Bute was backed to the ropes and he took a lot of heavy punches. He tried to clinch Froch to get him to stop punching but it no use. Froch continued to hit him in the side of the head even while being held. After the two fighters were separated, Froch continued to flurry on Bute. The last part of the round was all Froch as he really laid into him.

In the 4th round, Bute landed a hard left to the head of Froch. Bute then followed it up with two hard lefts to the body. Once again, Froch took charge and started battering Bute against the ropes. This time Bute was smart enough to spin off the ropes and get Froch backed up. It didn’t help Bute, though, as Froch continued to drive right hands through then guard of Bute.

With seconds to go in the round, Froch badly hurt Bute again and was hitting him at will with heavy shots with Bute backed against the ropes. The referee should have scored it as a knockdown because Bute was literally held up by the ropes at the very end of the round.

Bute looked gone already going into the 5th round. Froch continued to land shots at will while Bute just looked to be trying not to get hit. He offered up a few token shots but he didn’t have his heart into it by then. Finally, Froch drove Bute up against the ropes and flurried with some tremendous shots, snapping Bute’s head back twice from right hands and lefts to the head. The referee jumped in and gave Bute a standing eight round. After looking him over, the referee finally halted the fight and Bute, badly hurt now, was helped back to his corner on shaky legs.

After the fight, Froch said “That was one hell of a beating.”