By Jason Kim: Photo credit Tom Casino/Showtime – IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (28-0, 23 KO’s) put on a punching power display on Saturday night, knocking Irish challenger Brian Magee (34-4-1, 24 KO’s) around and taking him out in the 10th round with a nice uppercut at the at the Bell Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The fight was fairly close until the 6th when Bute began to focus on throwing more to the body. He discovered then that Magee couldn’t take it very well to the midsection.

From there, Bute knocked Magee down in the 6th, 7th and then took him out in the 10th. Then win now puts Bute on a crash course with two-time super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (43-2, 32 KO’s) next in a fight that you’d have to say is a toss up bout. Bute didn’t look great tonight against a pretty average Magee. Kessler is a lot better than Magee and Bute tries to go to the body like he did against Magee, Bute may find himself being carried out of the ring on a stretcher.

Bute has to think defense against Kessler because Bute doesn’t have the greatest of chins and Kessler can really punch. In his last fight a year ago, Kessler defeated power puncher Carl Froch by a 12 round decision and not only took Froch’s best shots, but had him backing off and looking to avoid trouble. Bute has had things pretty much easy since he won the IBF title in 2008, with most of his opponents being fringe contenders that have been hanging around on the super middleweight tree for ages. Sadly, Bute still hasn’t faced anyone dangerous like Kessler. We could see Bute taken down and Kessler being the one to take on the winner of the Super Six tourney, not Bute.