By Dan Ambrose: Having just lost a potential fight against former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik for his next fight, IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute is targeting some more middleweights and is looking at trying to land a fight against Peter Quillin or Dmitriy Pirog. The chances aren’t good at getting Quillin to take the fight, because he’s now fighting at middleweight and probably wouldn’t want to move back up in weight to face the dangerous Bute.

Bute needs a high caliber opponent for his next fight to keep boxing fans interested. His time as the International Boxing Federation champion has been marked by fights against mostly overmatched older fighters and guys with little name. Sadly, a fight against the struggling Pavlik would have been a huge step up in class for Bute compared to the guys he’s been facing. However, Pavlik wasn’t happy with the money that was being offered to him, so he’s history.

Hopefully, Bute’s promoter can lure Johnson or Dirrell into accepting the fight. Johnson will be the best bet, because Dirrell hasn’t fought in over a year and is coming off of an injury. He’s probably not going to want to fight Bute in November without at least two or three tune-ups beforehand. 42-year-old Johnson is coming off of a loss to WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch, but will still likely jump at the chance to fight Bute. Johnson looked terrible against Froch, rarely throwing any punches and just looking like an old fighter that can no longer pull the trigger. He’s a level above the poor opposition that Bute has been facing.