By Jim Dower: 35-year-old Romanian Lucian Bute (32-3, 25 KOs) showed tonight that he still has a lot left in the tank in forcing IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale (22-1, 14 KOs) to have to struggle hard to beat him by a 12 round unanimous decision in a fight that could well have been scored a draw with a different set of judges in a fight televised by Showtime Championship Boxing from the Vidéotron Centre in Quebec City.
DeGale never really gained control over the fight, as it was Bute who took command of the action and dominated the last half of the contest in this writer’s view. The judge obviously saw otherwise in scoring the bout for the 29-year-old DeGale by the fairly wide scores of 116-112, 117-111, and 117-111. The decision wasn’t a popular one among the Canadian fans, because they booed loudly the results. The scoring was very generous for DeGale and it negated a lot of the good things that Bute had done in controlling the second half of the fight. The judges were impressed with the movement that DeGale did, and the pot shot type of attacks that he made.
In the 11th round, DeGale appeared to intentionally spit out his mouthpiece moments after being hurt by a hard body shot from Bute. What was really telling was how DeGale backed up to the ropes and just covered up for the remainder of the round after his mouthpiece was put back in. It looked like DeGale was seriously hurt by the body shot that came earlier, and that he needed the remainder of the round to recover from the shot. At any rate, Bute was in charge in the 11th and 12th rounds, as well as rounds 9 and 10.
The scoring of the fight was very odd, because they judges gave Bute no credit for him having dominated the last half of the fight, as well as winning at least two of the first six rounds. If you look at all the rounds that Bute appeared to win, he deserved no least than a draw in the fight if not a win. Of course, a draw would have allowed DeGale to keep his IBF title, but at least Bute would have had a good argument for deserving a rematch. With him losing by the wide scores the three judges scored the fight, it means that Bute is probably out of luck in hopes of getting a second shot at a title against DeGale. Bute may deserve a rematch against DeGale based on the actual fight that took place, but with the ridiculously wide scores the three judges handed down, it allows DeGale to move on to somebody else without him taking quite as much heat as he would if the fight was scored a 12 round draw.
This win for DeGale doesn’t make him look good, as he didn’t do as good a job as Carl Froch did in beating Bute.
Bute followed his trainer’s commands to the letter in the last six rounds, as his trainer told him to apply pressure. Bute did exactly as he was told and he was very effective.
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