By Tim Nielson: Undefeated IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (22-0, 18 KOs) will be defending his title on Saturday against Librado Andrade (27-1, 21 KOs) in what will surely be Bute’s toughest fight to date at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. This will be Bute’s second defense of his title that he won against Alejandro Berrio a year ago in October 2007, with an 11th round TKO over the Columbian Berrio. Bute, 28, has unfortunately been only able to defend the title once with a 10th round stoppage victory over veteran William Joppy in February.
Following that win, however, Bute injured one of his knees in training and has been forced to rehabilitate the knee. However, when Bute is well, he’s one of the top super middleweights in the division, possibly the number #2 overall fighter in the division after Mikkel Kessler. With Joe Calzaghe no longer actively taking on fights in the division, Kessler and Bute have risen up to the top spots at super middleweight, with only Andrade and Carl Froch approaching them in talent.
One fighter that may eventually given them trouble, Daniel Jacobs, is perhaps a couple of years away before he faces either of them, so they still have time to reign without too many real threats in the division. Bute, formerly from Romania and now residing in Montreal, Canada, has defeated a number of good super middleweights like Andre Thysse, Lolenga Mock, Sergey Tatevosyan, Sakio Bika and the aforementioned Berrio and Joppy.
The win over Bika, a lopsided 12-round unanimous decision in June 2007, was all the more impressive because Calzaghe, himself, had struggled to defeat Bika by a similar decision a year earlier, taking a lot of punishment while beating him. Bute, however, made it look easy, rarely getting hit by Bika and totally dominating him from the outside. Bute, a southpaw, likes to keep his hands low, daring his opponents to try and land head shots. When they invariably do, Bute either leans backwards to avoid the shot or skitters away to the outside, preventing his opponents from landing anything of note.
His boxing style is kind of a combination of Roy Jones Jr., Kessler and Hector “Macho” Camacho all rolled up into one. The fact that he’s southpaw, and fights most of his fights in front of a large home crowd in Montreal, Canada, make him even harder to deal with. He’s not the type of fighter that can be beaten with pressure alone, mainly because he’s so good at getting away from his opponents when attacking him.
Andrade, 30, has already previously challenged for a title, losing an embarrassing 12-round decision to Kessler in March 2007. Andrade, a fighter that does well against stationary opponents, had fits with the movement, jabs and hooks from Kessler and had no backup plan to deal with his movement. Against fighters that stand directly in front of him, however, Andrade is lethal, almost unbeatable. In his last fight, he stopped Robert Stieglitz by an 8th round TKO in March, overwhelming the German-based Russian with punches and eventually taking him out.
Stieglitz didn’t have the movement to stay away from Andrade, and hence he was forced to try and match Andrade punch for punch. Given that Andrade often throws way above 100 punches per round, it was a no-win situation for Stieglitz before the first round bell was rung. It’s unfortunate for Andrade, though, that Bute doesn’t fight like Stieglitz, because if he did, this would probably be an easy win for Andrade. The problem is Bute won’t be there for him, and will move constantly, keeping away and frustrating him with jabs and lead left hands.
Prediction: an easy 12-round decision for Bute