By Dan Ambrose: 34-year-old former IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (31-2, 24 KOs) is now being trained by Freddie Roach in a move that Bute hopes will resurrect his career.
Bute met with Roach at his Wildcard gym last month and he decided at that time to start training with him. Roach did a great job of seemingly turning around the career of Miguel Cotto when he was on his last legs, and there’s hope that Roach will be able to do the same thing with Bute.
With Cotto, you can’t know for sure whether Roach really helped him because he hasn’t actually faced a good opponent since Roach joined up with him.
Bute said “It’s an honor for me to benefit from the advices of a renowned trainer. I have the intention to give everything I have to come back strong in the ring for my fans and the boxing supporters.”
Bute now fights at light heavyweight, and in that weight class there doesn’t seem like there’s any chance for Bute to do anything. He doesn’t match up with any of the current champions – Bernard Hopkins, Adonis Stevenson, Jurgen Braehmer and Sergey Kovalev.
Bute also isn’t young enough to wait out the likes of Hopkins and Stevenson, both of which are getting on in years at this point in their careers. Bute will be turning 35 in February, and he appears to be older than those two fighters in terms of ring years.
Bute will be training with Roach in the Philippines at the same time Roach is training WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao for his November 22nd title defense against Chris Algieri in Macao, China. Bute will be fighting on December 6th against an opponent still to be determined at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. In the last two years, Bute has fought only twice and looked terrible in both fights.
While Roach is a good trainer, he’s not a miracle and he can’t bring back a fighter that has seen better days. With Cotto, I think we’re seeing him look good because he’s now being matched against shot fighters rather than guys in their prime. I think about the best that Roach can do for Bute is what he’s doing for Cotto by helping pick out opponent that he thinks he can beat.
Roach has a keen eye for fighters that are old and have lost it, and he’ll be able to pick out guys that Bute can get by. But even at this stage in Bute’s career he might not even be able to beat guys that are over-the-hill.
Bute’s career has stalled since his 5th round knockout loss to Carl Froch in 2012. That loss seems to have taken all the air out of Bute’s career for some reason, because his confidence appears to be completely shot.
Bute also appears to be gun-shy now. He beat Denis Grachev in his first fight after the loss to Froch, but then he was beaten soundly by Jean Pascal last January in losing by an uninspired 12 round decision.
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