By Scott Gilfoid: IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (30-0, 24 KO’s) will be risking his title on May 26th in his gamble that he’ll get a fair deal from the judging when he faces British fighter Carl Froch (28-2, 20 KO’s) in his home city at the Nottingham Arena, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire.

Bute said to evz.ro “Froch doesn’t have a lot of speed or talent, but these are offset by a huge heart.”

So true. Froch doesn’t have the kind of talent that Bute, the Dirrell brothers and Andre Ward possess, but he’s willing to take head shots to try and win. Unfortunately, Froch is probably going to have to take a whole mess of head shots against Bute because he’s going to have huge difficulty in trying to land his punches due to Bute’s superb defense. He’s not easy to hit with his in and out style of fighting and he tends to make his attacks in waves that Froch will have problems with.

If Froch had big power like Gennedy Golovkin, then I could see him having a decent chance of pulling off the victory. However, he doesn’t have the kind of explosive two-punch power that Golovkin possesses, even though Froch is a lot bigger than Golovkin. What this means is that Froch is going to have to be willing to eat roughly five shots for every one he lands against Bute. He can’t match him punch for punch because of Bute’s quick feet and his style of getting out of harm’s way after he lands a big shots. What Froch needs most of all is to have foot speed identical to the talented Andre Dirrell, because he’s one of the few fighters that can catch up to Froch and make him pay for his hit and run style of fighting.