Bute still wants Froch next; Hopkins is also a possibility

By Boxing News - 02/03/2012 - Comments

Image: Bute still wants Froch next; Hopkins is also a possibilityBy Scott Gilfoid: IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (30-0, 24 KO’s) says that the negotiations with former WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (28-2, 20 KO’s) aren’t over, according to an interview at prosport.ro. He and his promoter are still currently trying to put that fight together for April 14th despite Froch saying he’ll be fighting in Nottingham, England next and not against Bute.

If Bute can’t a fight with Froch, then he says WBC light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins is one of the options they have available to them. It doesn’t look like Bute and his promoter from InterBox will be listening to what SHOWTIME, who wants Bute to fight Andre Dirrell next. Bute doesn’t want that fight.

Bute said “They [Showtime] don’t decide on their own who fights who. I have a contract for one fight.”

SHOWTIME does like the idea of Bute fighting Hopkins and they’d no doubt go for this fight in a second. However, SHOWTIME rightfully isn’t interested in seeing Bute fight Froch, because American viewers just saw Froch get beaten by WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward in a one-sided 12 round decision last December. Call it strange, but Americans don’t particularly like to see champions cherry pick recently beaten fighters and then have the fight shoved down their throat by the cable giants. I guess America is peculiar in that. They want to see champions take on winners, not losers. So, I think there’s a failure on Bute and his promotional team’s part in really understanding why SHOWTIME doesn’t want to see Bute fight a guy that was just soundly beaten. Not sure why it’s not sinking in to Bute. He’s been able to fight weak opposition while holding down the IBF belt for the past three years, and SHOWTIME has televised many of these sick mismatches but it looks like they’re looking for value this time and Bute is resistant to that. He wants a guy that was just beaten for some reason, and that’s going against what SHOWTIME sees as good television. Froch would have been given the green light by SHOWTIME IF Froch hadn’t gotten whipped by Ward, but the fact of the matter is he DID get whipped, so Froch is not going to be someone that SHOWTIME wants to see Bute fight. I’m sure if SHOWTIME had their way, they’d love to see Bute fight Andre Ward, but Ward wants to finally see Bute fight and beaten an A level fighter because he faces him and it looks like he’s having some problems because Bute is dragging his feet on this.

Bute said “It [Hopkins] is one of the options that I and InterBox have in mind.”

I have a feeling that Hopkins isn’t high on the agenda for Bute. We could see a lesser fighter pulled out of the hat with Bute facing a retread opponent that he’s already beaten before but who the Canadian fans wouldn’t mind seeing Bute fight again, someone like Librado Andrade. With matchmaking like that, no wonder Bute is still unbeaten. The guy doesn’t take chances, so it’s kind of hard to beat him.

I think SHOWTIME needs to cut their losses and eat the last fight on the Bute contract if he insists on fighting whoever he wants. It’s not good television to see Bute fighting lesser fighters over and over again or ones that are coming off of losses like Carl Froch. If this is what Americans have to see, then it’s not worth having Bute’s fights piped into the United States in my view. None of them are ever competitive or exciting and the guys that Bute fights all the time are generally mediocre.



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