By Scott Gilfoid: Carl Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn sees Froch hurting IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute if he comes looking to fight Froch on May 26th their title match in Nottingham, UK. Hearn believes that Froch can hurt Bute and possibly stop him if Bute is willing to fight Froch in a war. I frankly don’t see it happening, so Hearn is flapping his gums for no reason. Bute will pick Froch apart without taking any risks.

Hearn said to Press Association “Bute is untested. We’ll find out against Froch how good he is. He’s definitely better than some people thing but he’s been hurt before…Carl can whack, so if he comes to engage and fight, which I think he will, he’s going to get hurt at times. Let’s see how he responds to pressure of fighting away from home and the pressure of fighting in front of 9000 fans.”

I don’t think it’ll be any problems whatsoever for Bute. Andre Dirrell had no problems shutting out the yapping British fans, and he did a marvelous job of dominating Froch in their fight in October 2009. I see Bute capable of doing roughly the same thing, but perhaps with not quite as much success because he doesn’t have the amazing defensive skills, hand speed or foot movement that Dirrell had in his fight against Froch.

Froch can punch a little no doubt, but Bute can punch a lot. He’s a much better puncher than Froch and a devastating body puncher. Froch is going to be the one that gets hurt in this fight, not Bute. It’s going to be much easier for Bute to hurt Froch because he’ll set up a lot of traps for him and Froch being the Froch that he is, he’ll plod straight into them and take Bute’s sneaky power shots full force in his lantern jaw or midsection. I wouldn’t be surprised if Froch is rolling around on the canvas in pain, slamming his fist on the canvas saying “NO! No!”