By Dan Ambrose: Waiting for IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (27-0, 22 KO’s) to take on an interesting opponent is like waiting for Felix Sturm to step it up several levels and start facing some real quality fighters. It’s just been incredibly slow going for Bute since he captured the IBF title in 2008. We’ve seen him in with 38-year-old William Joppy, twice with Librado Andrade, and then in fights against Jesse Brinkley, Edison Miranda and Fulgencio Zuniga.
On Saturday, we’ll be seeing Bute take on 35-year-old EBU champion Brian Magee (34-3-1, 24 KO’s) at the Bell Centre, Montreal, Canada. If Bute had taken on a series of really tough fights, this would be a decent tune-up fight for him. But instead it’s more of the typical opponents that Bute has been facing since he won the IBF and that’s really disappointing. Bute has been a really underwhelming champion in terms of taking on interesting opponents that boxing fans want to see.
Oh, I’m sure that Ireland really likes this fight because that’s where Magee is from. However, I don’t see how Canada, which is where Bute now fights, can be excited by this fight and I know in the U.S. pretty much no one is interested in this bout, even though the fight will be on Showtime. I don’t see it as a Showtime-worthy fight. I see it as a fight that should be buried deep on an ESPN 2 fight. It’s just not an interesting bout and appears to be a huge mismatch.
Hopefully, Bute gets the mismatches out of his blood after this fight and starts taking on some interesting bouts because I can’t believe his fights are being shown in the U.S against guys like Miranda, Brinkley and Magee. Those were all one-sided fights even before the first punch was thrown and were completely boring to watch.
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