By Jason Kim: IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (26-0, 21 KO’s) will be making his 6th defense of his International Boxing Federation title on October 15th against American Jesse Brinkley (35-5, 22 KO’s) at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada. Bute, 30, is considered by many boxing fans to be the best fighter in the super middleweight division bar none. However, Bute, for all the accolades that are given him by fans and boxing writers, his competition has been decidedly weak for much of his career and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better as he ages.

In his five fights, Bute has faced William Joppy, Linrado Andrade (twice), Fulgencio Zuniga and Edison Miranda. That’s not good enough when you’ve got talented fighters like Carl Froch, Arthur Abraham, Andre Ward, Andre Dirrell and Allan Green in the super middleweight division. Those are the guys that Bute should be trying to fight, not 33-yea-old Brinkley, who has previously been beaten by Joe Spina, Robin Reid, Alfonso Gomez, and Sergio Mora. Bute needs to step it up with his career and stop wasting time fighting lesser fighters.

Ideally, Bute needs to fight WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal or Chad Dawson. The Super Six tournament ends next year, which will enable Bute to fight the winner and/or Mikkel Kessler. Bute is lucky he didn’t get knocked out in his first fight with Andrade in October 2008. Bute was given an extended long count by the Canadian referee after getting knocked own by Andrade in the 12th. The extra time was enough for Bute to stagger back to his feet and spent the remaining seconds of the round leaning on the ropes instead of immediately walking towards the referee to show him that he could still walk without any problems.