Bute Defeats Andrade on Long Count – Latest Boxing News

By Boxing News - 10/25/2008 - Comments

bute434564.jpgBy Scott Gilfoid: In a fight that was eerily similar to Jack Dempsey’s historic 1926 long count fight with Gene Tunney in 1926, IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (23-0, 18 KOs) survived a 12th round knockout, one in which the referee hesitated for a lengthy amount of time before finally starting the count after Bute was knocked down in the round, to defeat challenger Librado Andrade (27-2, 21 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Bute, 28, had dominated most of the fight up until the 11th round when Andrade hurt a weary Bute with a big left hand, causing him to clinch.

However, just when Andrade was going for the kill, the referee for some strange reason jumped in between them, interrupting the action and giving Andrade a warning because he had roughly peeled Bute, who was clinching for dear life, off of him in order to finish him off. The time spent warning Andrade allowed the badly hurt Bute to survive what possibly could have been the end of the fight in the 11th. In the 12th round, Andrade unloaded on Bute with two hard left hands while Bute was all over him, clinching and trying to run out the clock. The two left hands hurt Bute, who then began staggering around the ring taking big shots from Andrade the entire time.

After taking a series of punishing head shots, Bute staggered across the ring and came to a rest on the ropes, where he just hung there for a second, too hurt too move. Andrade then calmly walked up to him and flattened him with a big right hand, sending him to the canvas. With only seconds left in the fight at this point, instead of giving Bute an immediate standing eight count, the referee focused his attention on Andrade, pointing for him to go to the far corner, which he immediately did. Now, however, instead of starting the count, the referee then looked out into the audience searching for someone, while Bute lay there badly hurt on the canvas.

Still not starting the count, the referee then turned around and looked back in the direction of Andrade, who had wondered back to the center of the ring, perhaps to get a better look at what was taking the referee so long in counting out Bute. By this time, the count should have been completed because Bute was still down and badly. Indeed, the fight should have probably been stopped without a count because Bute was seriously hurt and not in the position to fight anymore.

Whatever the case, the referee turned his attention to Andrade, rather than giving Bute the count, and sternly told Andrade to get back to his corner. After watching him walk all the way back to the neutral corner, only then did the referee walk back to Bute and start counting. Bute then made it up by the count of eight, but it might as well have been 30-40 by that time, as he had been down for a considerable amount of time. Barely able to stand, Bute had to lean on the ropes while getting the standing eight count, resting with both hands on the sides of the ropes for support.

After giving the standing eight count, the round ended immediately after. The referee didn’t appear ask Bute to walk towards him, because if he did, Bute never budged from his perch leaning against the ropes. The fight then went to the cards, and Bute was given the decision by virtue of him winning most of the earlier rounds of the fight. Bute looked magnificent early on, using his jab, straight left hand and movement to give Andrade fits.

However, all the movement that Bute was going came at a cost – he was tiring badly as the rounds wore on and taking occasional big head shots from Andrade, shots that would freeze Bute for a second. By the 11th round, Bute was clinching continuously, looking very tired and seemingly trying to run out the clock on the fight. After hurting Bute in the 11th, but prevented from finishing him off due to the referee stopping the action to warn him about pushing, Andrade went for the kill in the 12th round.

Bute fought moderately well with his jab and clinching, preventing Andrade from landing anything. However, Andrade decided to make the most of his opportunities and proceeded to tag Bute with two good left hands while being clinched. The punches badly hurt Bute, who was still probably not all together from having been hurt in the 11th, who began staggering around the ring like a drunken sailor. Probably most referees would have stopped the fight at this point given Bute’s terrible condition, but the referee let it play until Bute was dropped like a rock while lying helpless on the ropes. Again, the fight should have been stopped at this point because he looked totally out of it.

However, it wasn’t. Instead of giving the count, as I mentioned earlier, the referee began to focus his attention on Andrade, gesturing for him to go to the far corner. Yet, the referee still didn’t get to the counting and had more than enough time to count Bute out. Instead, he whirled around again after several second, once again directing his attention to Andrade rather than Bute. He wasted more precious seconds walking to the center of the ring and pointing his right hand out twice, gesturing for Andrade to go to his corner. After watching this take place, the referee finally walked over to Bute, who had collected himself now with all the time that he had been allowed to recoup, and began the count. The final judges’ scores were 117-109, 115-111 and 115-110.

In a similar bout between challenger Jack Dempsey and then heavyweight champion Gene Tunney on September 23rd, 1926, Dempsey dropped Tunney with a combination of shots while he had him trapped against the ropes in the 7th round, sending Tunney to the canvas. At the time, Tunney had been dominating Dempsey and looked well on his way to easily winning the fight. The referee then instructed for Dempsey, who was standing nearby, to go to the neutral corner. However, in this case, unlike Andrade, Dempsey just stood there for a second ignoring the referee and waiting for Tunney to get to his feet so that he could knock him back down again. However, by the time that Dempsey finally listed to the referee’s instructions to go back to his corner, Tunney had been down a considerable amount of time, up to seven seconds. It was only at the point that Dempsey reached the far corner that the referee finally started counting, giving Tunney an extra four to five seconds to collect himself and get up.



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