By Scott Gilfoid: Carl Froch (28-2, 20 KO’s) not only believes he’s going to beat IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (30-0, 24 KO’s) on Saturday in Nottingham, but Froch is so convinced he’s going to win that he’s literally promising he’s going to beat the Romanian.

Froch said “I promise that I’m going to beat Bute…He’s going to get beat. I’m going to be the IBF champ. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure I win that belt.”

This is what I was afraid of. Froch has convinced himself that he’s going to win, and he’s going to end with egg spattered all over his face when he ends up getting dropped and knocked out by Bute on Saturday. I just hope it doesn’t ruin Froch’s confidence when he gets blown out by Bute, because when a fighter has convinced himself to the point where he’s making promises of victory, the way that Froch is doing here, it sometimes ends up ruining the fighters’ self belief. I think a more realistic attitude from Froch would be for him to come to terms with the likelihood that he’s going to taste defeat under almost any circumstance and to see it as not such a bad thing. When you know don’t have much of a chance, there’s not much of a let down, as long as you gave it your best shot.

Bute has Froch out-gunned in basically category I can imagine. Here are the areas where I see Bute as being superior to Froch:

Power: Bute
Speed: Bute
Jab: Bute
Height: Bute
Reach: Bute
Defensive skills: Bute
Ring intelligence: Bute

Here is where I see Froch having an advantage over Bute

Chin: Froch
Experience against quality opposition: Froch

As you can see, Bute has the advantage over Froch in all but two areas, and those areas won’t be important for this fight because Bute won’t be getting hit a lot by Froch. Bute will make sure he keeps moving and avoids Froch slow attacks. Froch isn’t much of a pressure fighter, and that’s how you beat Bute. The other way to beat Bute is to have incredible one-punch power like Gennady Golovkin. We saw what Golovkin did to Bute in the amateur ranks when he stopped him with a brutal right hand. Froch doesn’t have that kind of one punch power unfortunately. He has to bang away with an accumulation of shots over many, many rounds for him to get a stoppage. With Bute’s hit and run style of fighting, Froch isn’t going to get that chance. He’s going to be frustrated and punching at air until Bute puts him out of his misery with a devastating left hand to the body.