DeGale expects to KO Bute in 6 rounds

By Boxing News - 11/24/2015 - Comments

degale55By Scott Gilfoid: IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale (21-1, 14 KOs) seems to be bothered by the fact that challenger Lucian Bute (32-2, 25 KOs) is saying that he’s never been beaten before in Quebec during his career. DeGale thinks that the 35-year-old Bute is trying to get confidence by saying he’s never been beaten in Quebec.

The way DeGale sees it, he’ll be knocking Bute out by the 6th round in their fight this Saturday night at the Centre Videotron, in Quebec City, Quebec.

Well, there’s going to be some pressure on the 29-year-old DeGale in this contest for him to try and get Bute out of there quicker than Carl Froch did in their fight three years ago. Froch was able to score a TKO in the 5th round, when Bute stupidly retreated to the ropes and tried to fight Froch from that position.

It was an incredibly dumb thing for Bute to do, because Froch always did well in his fights when his opponents would try and fight off the ropes rather than staying in the center of the ring. We saw how the talented Andre Dirrell made Froch look like he had two left feet in their fight in 2009.

All Bute would have needed to do to beat Froch was to copy Dirrell’s blueprint, because Dirrell clearly beat Froch by 9 rounds to 3 in my view.

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“Bute keeps going on about his home crowd and how he has never lost in Quebec City and it’s like he’s trying to get confidence. I’m easy, I’m going over there and I’m chilled,” DeGale told ESPN.com about Saturday’s fight. “The way I’m feeling, I’d say this fight will be over in six rounds, but you never know.”

DeGale doesn’t have the talent to assume that he’ll beat anyone in the sport, especially by a knockout. In DeGale’s last fight against Andre Dirrell in May, DeGale got two knockdowns in the 2nd round, and yet he still barely won the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 114-112, 117-109 and 114-112. The thing of it is the second knockdown came from a push from DeGale rather than a punch.

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The referee royally blew it by scoring that as a knockdown instead of a push. I just wonder what the referee would have done if Dirrell started shoving DeGale to the canvas left and right. Would he have scored those as knockdowns too? It was just sad, sad referee job for that fight. Without that blown call in the 2nd round, the fight would have been ruled a draw rather than a win for DeGale.

“It could be tricky against Bute, he’s very experienced, he knows how to fiddle a fight and that’s what I can’t let him do. I can’t let him get in his rhythm, give him his space,” DeGale said.

Well, if DeGale decides he wants to trade with Bute, then we could see a minor upset in this fight with Bute scoring a knockout, because he’s definitely the bigger puncher of the two. Bute has far superior one-punch power than DeGale, and he’s a better body puncher as well. If Bute can land his shots in this fight, then I definitely see him winning the fight with DeGale either getting knocked out or losing by a decision. The only way that DeGale can win this fight is by using his slap and move style, and making sure that he limits the amount of shots he gets hit with.

Bute looked good in his last fight in beating Andrea Di Luisa by a 4th round knockout last August.

“Badou Jack is based in Las Vegas, signed to Al Haymon and it would be so easy to make and we’d have the IBF and WBC belts on the line,” DeGale said. “That is the dream fight and it’s the one I’m pushing Al Haymon for. I’m saying, ‘Please, make it next’. He’s saying, ‘Don’t you want Julio Cesar Chavez Jr next? No, I want Jack next.”

Oh look, DeGale is thinking past his fight against Bute towards another clash. What a mistake. How bad. DeGale won’t be in the position to beg Haymon for a fight against Badou Jack after this Saturday, because I think Bute is going to knock him out cold and send him back home with a bruised ego. At least DeGale will have a nice lesson to learn from this fight.



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