By Allan Fox: The May 25th fight between former Canadian based world champions Jean Pascal (27-2, 16 KO’s) and Lucian Bute (31-1, 24 KO’s) is a done deal as of today, Friday. Pascal and Bute’s promoters both report that the fight has been signed and the fight go ahead at a still to be determined venue in Montreal, Canada.
This is kind of a fight that mainly Canadians are into because it’s not all that interesting for other boxing fans. Bute was badly exposed by Carl Froch last year in May, and Bute looked like a shadow of his former self in his rebound fight against Denis Grachev last November in winning a not too impressive 12 round decision. I don’t know if Bute has gotten old overnight, but he sure seems to be fighting like he has.
Pascal, 30, has fought only once in the past two years after getting schooled twice by Bernard Hopkins. Pascal came back from a long, long layoff of a year and half to beat Aleksy Kuziemski by a 10 round decision last December.
Pascal was lucky he was fighting a poor opponent because if that was a good light heavyweight he was in there he would have lost the fight. Pascal suffered an injury early, and struggled the rest of the way by just using his right hand.
Both Bute and Pascal can’t afford to lose this fight. Pascal wants to fight WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson in a rematch, and perhaps Pascal still can get that fight if he loses to Bute, but it’ll take out a lot of the interest in it.
Bute’s taking a big risk in facing Pascal because he can punch and he’s got fast hands. All Pascal has to do is watch the replay of how Froch was able to destroy Bute by rushing him and overwhelming him with shots, and then copy exactly what he did to the letter. If Pascal overwhelms Bute with punches then he’ll have a great chance of winning.
The question is can Pascal fight like that? He’s always been a pot shot fighter that lands one or two punches and then backs off to survey his work. That approach won’t bother Bute nearly as much as if Pascal jumps on him early and unloads until the fight is stopped.
Comments are closed.