By Scott Gilfoid: Former two-time WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (28-2, 20 KO’s) badly wants to beat IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (30-0, 24 KO’s) on May 26th when they square off in Froch’s home arena at the Nottingham Arena, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom.

But I see Froch getting KO’ed in front of his own fans with a vicious body shot by Bute.

For some reason Bute, 32, has become a much better knockout puncher as he’s aged rather than a lesser puncher. It’s kind of weird. Bute has knocked out 8 out of his last 10 opponents and he’s become boxing’s best body puncher by far. The only fighter that can compare to Bute in terms of scoring knockouts with body shots is Guillermo Rigondeaux, the WBA World super bantamweight champion. But Bute is knocking guys out an alarming rate, and it’s scary to see the effects of his brutal body shots.

Froch is one of those guys that can take tremendous punishment to the head without going down or getting stopped. However, Froch hasn’t been tested to the body all that much by anyone. Bute is going to be the first real body puncher that Froch will have faced in his career. Arthur Abraham, one of Froch’s victims in the Super Six tournament, is a good body puncher. However, at 5’9″, Abraham didn’t have the size to get near enough Froch to land his body shots.

Froch boxed all night long and kept Abraham from getting close. Bute, 6’1 1/2″, is clearly taller than Froch and seems to have a bigger frame than him as well. Bute is a bigger puncher and a much better body puncher. Froch is going to be eating some body shots that he’s never felt before, and I can’t see this going well. You can’t train to take the kinds of body shots that Bute will be delivering. Froch can brace for the shots, but they’re so powerful that it doesn’t help. And Bute throws them suddenly without warning, giving his opponents no time to block of tense up to take the body blows.

I hate to say it but Froch is going to get stopped with a big body punch at some point in the fight by Bute. I just hope it’s sooner rather than later for Froch, because that way he won’t have to take so much awful punishment from the Romanian fighter.