Miranda vs. Bute: Can Lucian stay away from Edison’s big power?

By Eric Thomas: On April 17th, knockout artist Edison Miranda (33-4, 29 KO’s) will be traveling to Canada to face International Boxing Federation super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (25-0, 20 KO’s) at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada. For Miranda, he can’t afford to lose this fight if he wants to keep in the thick of things in the super middleweight division. Miranda was beaten in a one-sided 12 round decision loss last year against Andre Ward. Miranda looked really bad in that fight, far too slow for the much quicker Ward.

Miranda has since rebounded from that loss to stop Francisco Sierra in the 1st round last October. Miranda looked very powerful fight, and like his old self. However, in taking on Bute, Miranda is going to have to find some hand and foot speed if he doesn’t want to end up losing as badly as he did to Ward. Bute has a hit and run style of fighting and is hard to hit because of it.

The only way to get at Bute is to pressure him hard, pursue him and throw punches. He’s going to land a lot of punches and catch his opponents while they’re coming in, but that’s just one of the things that a fighter has to be willing to accept when fighting Bute. Miranda isn’t very fast on his feet, as he showed in his lopsided loss to Ward, and really isn’t good at cutting off the ring either.

One would hope that Miranda’s team has been working on this during their training camp for this fight because if he going into this fight trying to plod forward looking to land a big shot, Bute will slice him to piece with his fast shot. Realistically, Miranda has very little chance of beating Bute. His only real chance is if he goes after him hard, hits him as hard as he can, and maybe takes him out late in the fight.

Bute has stamina issues, as he showed in his fight against Librado Andrade in 2008, and if he’s forced to fight hard, he wears down as the rounds go by. This is what Miranda will have to try and do. But he’ll have to fight at a much faster pace than he usually does if he wants to wear down Bute.