By Sam Gregory:It was a full moon on Friday the thirteenth in Montreal where anything was possible tonight for the undefeated super middleweight contender Lucian Bute 23-0 with 18 KO’s returning to the ring in a scheduled 12 round bout to defend his IBF super middleweight title against 31 year old Colombian Fulgencio Zuniga 22-3 with 19 KO’s in a special World Championship edition of ShoBox: The New Generation from the Belle Centre in Montreal Quebec.
The challenger Zuniga came out of his corner aggressively in the first round testing the champion but was never really in the fight. Zuniga was never able to land anything of significance and when Bute got his rhythm going he outboxed the challenger from the start.
The champion Bute made it an easy night of boxing by working off his jab and landing solid combinations early on. In the third round the southpaw found a home for his solid left hand that spit the guard of Zuniga.
In the fourth round Bute landed a beautiful textbook upper-cut to the solar plexus dropping Zuniga to the delight of the 12,000 plus fans at the Belle Centre. Zuniga briefly made it to his feet but only long enough for the champion to close the show in 2:25 of the fourth round.
This was the third successful IBF title defense for Lucian Bute as he improved his undefeated record to 24 wins with no loses, 19 coming by way of knockout. The challenger Fulgencio Zuniga fell to 22 wins and 4 loses. This was the second time he was defeated by KO.