By Scott Gilfoid: IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale (21-1, 14 KOs) is in kind of a no-win situation with his upcoming first title defense against a past his best 35-year-old former IBF 168lb champ Lucian Bute (32-2, 25 KOs) on November 28th at the Centre Videotron, in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.
Bute is considered to be over-the-hill by a lot of boxing fans, and he was previously whipped by Carl Froch in five rounds three years ago in 2012. Froch thinks that DeGale is in an impossible situation with the Bute fight.
If he beats him, boxing fans will compare his performance to that of Froch. If DeGale can’t measure up to the standard that Froch set in defeating Bute, then people won’t be impressed. If DeGale does destroy Bute, then some fans will make little of the win because they’ll think that Froch softened Bute up three years ago in beating him in 2012.
Either way, DeGale might not be given a lot of credit if beats the 35-year-old Bute. There’s no question that Bute hasn’t looked like the same fighter since losing to Froch. You can say the same thing about George Groves. He hasn’t looked like the same fighter either. Whether it’s mental thing or something Froch did to those fighters physically is unclear.
It might even be a no-win situation for DeGale, as well,” Froch said to skysports.com. “People always make comparisons in boxing and people will compare his performance with that five-round battering I gave Bute. I am not being big-headed but he will find it hard to do better than that,” Froch said.
Froch might be right about DeGale being put in an impossible situation in his fight against Bute. He’s not going to get a lot of credit, and he could wind up taking a lot of criticism if he struggles like he did against Andre Dirrell last May.
If DeGale gets staggered, knocked down and has to work really hard to get the victory over Bute, then he’s going to lose a lot of respect from the boxing community. If Bute defeats DeGale, then it’s going to really do a number on DeGale’s career.
“If he does, then people will say Bute was finished off by me, yet if he outpoints him – which I think he will – people will still compare,” Froch said. “Like I say, it might be a no-win situation for DeGale and it is far from easy.”
DeGale should have resisted the idea of fighting Bute in the first place. I don’t know if it was his idea to fight Bute or his promoter Eddie Hearn’s. I know if it was me that was fighting Bute, I’d have told Hearn I want no part of fighting the guy, because I wouldn’t have wanted to be put into a situation where my performance was compared to Froch’s.
I wouldn’t want to be given no credit after I whipped Bute to smithereens. I’d have told Hearn that I want either a rematch against Andre Dirrell, so that I could beat him without controversy like the last time, or fight his brother Anthony Dirrell. DeGale couldn’t go wrong by fighting either of the Dirrell brothers because they’re still in their prime and both huge talents in the U.S.
Speaking about DeGale’s win over Dirrell, Froch said “DeGale looked flat-footed and he labored to the win – and a win that could have easily gone the other way. Andre Dirrell he beat to become IBF champion was also not as good as the one we’d seen before.”
I agree that the DeGale-Dirrell fight could have gone either way. If the judges have given Dirrell the 12th round, which he appeared to win, and some of the rounds after the 4th, then he would have won. There’s also the controversial second knockdown in the 2nd round in which DeGale pushed Dirrell down on the canvas, and the referee still counted it as a knockdown. That shouldn’t have been a knockdown.
If you take away the bogus second knockdown in the 2nd round and then given Dirrell the 12th round like I had, then Dirrell would have won the fight. I also agree with Froch that Dirrell wasn’t as good last May against DeGale as he was back in 2009 when he fought Froch.
I think Dirrell had problems making the weight for the DeGale fight, because he looked like he gained a ton of weight after he rehydrated in the fight, and he clearly ran out of gas in the last three rounds. Dirrell wasn’t as sculpture as he normally is for his fights. That makes me think that he didn’t train right to take off the weight, and it hurt him in the fight.
Bute recently defeated Andrea Di Luisa by a 4th round knockout last August. I don’t think Bute looked good at all in that fight, especially when he was shaken up by a big shot from the little known Di Luisa in the 4th round. I thought Bute looked sluggish, slow and old. The only thing that Bute had going for him in the Di Luisa fight last August was his punching power, which was extraordinary as always.
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