Is Bute tailor made for Edison Miranda?

By Boxing News - 04/16/2010 - Comments

By Jim Dower: Tomorrow night’s fight between International Boxing Federation super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (25-0, 20 KO’s) and Edison Miranda (33-4, 29 KO’s) matches two completely different fighters against each other. Bute, 30, is good boxer with great technical skills, fast hands and the ability to get out of the way of shots after he unloads on his opponents. Miranda, 29, is slower, much more powerful and methodical in comparison. Miranda patiently stalks his opponents around the ring looking for one big shot to level them.

In terms of punching power, Miranda is probably the hardest puncher in the entire super middleweight division. He’s capable of ending a fight with one punch, and that’s what makes him so dangerous. While he’s not all that fast, he can more than make up for it if he can land one of his big bombs. Miranda has problems against fighters that can punch hard and others that are fast like Andre Ward.

However, Miranda does really well against opponents that aren’t huge punchers and who are slower. I’d say that Bute isn’t that big of a puncher despite having a good knockout percentage. He’s been able to stop a lot of fighters, but many of them are 2nd tier opponents and not top level guys. Bute was able to stop the usually ironed-jaw Librado Andrade by a 4th round TKO last year in November, but that was a case of Andrade being taken out with a body shot and not a head punch. Miranda should be okay in this fight, because Bute doesn’t have the same kind of power that Kelly Pavlik and Arthur Abraham, the only two fighters to stop Miranda in his nine year pro career – has.

Last year, Miranda lost a fairly one-sided 12 round decision to Ward, who may be the best fighter in the entire super middleweight division. That fight wasn’t as one-sided as some people think, though, because Miranda was able to hit Ward with a lot of big bombs. To Ward’s credit, he took the massive shots and was able to continue to keep fighting effectively and win the bout.

A lot of fighters would have been leveled with the punches that Miranda landed in the Ward fight. Miranda proved in that bout that no one beats him easily without him getting his pound of flesh in the process. Bute will have to have a really strong chin if he wants to get the win. He’s not going to be able to beat Miranda on the cheap by hitting and running all night long. Eventually, Miranda will either corner Bute or time him when he comes in to land his single shots.

Bute will have to hope that his chin holds up better than it did in the first Andrade fight, a bout in which Bute was badly hurt and knocked down in the 12th round by Andrade. In that fight, Bute appeared to benefit from a long count by the referee, who twice stopped the action while Bute was down to give warnings to Andrade to stay in the neutral corner.

It appeared that Bute was down for at least 24 second before he was able to make it to his feet and win the fight after the time ended seconds later. Against Miranda, Bute is going to have to avoid getting hit by him as much as possible or else he will get dropped. If Miranda hurts Bute, I don’t like his chances of surviving. Even though this fight will be held in Bute’s adopted home of Montreal, Canada, I doubt that the referee will be able to save Bute if he gets hurt by a big puncher like Miranda. He hits too hard and will knock him unconscious even if he doesn’t hit him perfectly.



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