By Dan Ambrose: Super middleweight contender Jesse Brinkley (35-5, 22 KO’s) is a huge underdog going into Friday’s bout against International Boxing Federation (IBF) super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (26-0, 21 KO’s) at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada.

Brinkley, 33, is badly overmatched in this fight and probably has no business fighting a quality fighter like Bute. However, the talent in the super middleweight division is badly depleted now that the top fighters are involved in the Super Six tournament and fighters like Mikkel Kessler and Andre Dirrell are injured and possibly finished as fighters.

Brinkley defeated Curtis Stevens in his last fight in January to get the shot against Bute. Brinkley isn’t a fighter with a lot of power, and normally wins his fights by working hard and grinding out decisions. In this fight, Brinkley will be facing a fighter that is a lot faster than him and also a much better puncher.

It looks pretty hopeless for Brinkley, but he does have a small chance if he can connect with something big against Bute. As we saw in Bute’s fight with Librado Andrade two years ago, he’s vulnerable to fighters that connect on big shots. Andrade isn’t a huge puncher and probably hits no harder than Brinkley.

But Andrade was willing to take Bute’s shots in order to stay in the fight long enough to land one of his own big punches. It’s not easy to hit Bute because he often fights with a hit and run style. You have to really time him when he’s coming in or you have to chase him down. Neither is easy to do, because Bute can fight going backwards and he changes his attacks often.

It’s not likely that Brinkley will get a knockout, because he hasn’t scored a knockout in two years, but that’s pretty much his once chance at beating Bute.