By Scott Gilfoid: The IBF contenders have been dropping off like flies in dodging Adonis Stevenson (18-1, 15 KO’) in an IBF super middleweight eliminator bout scheduled for August 11th at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

We’ve already seen Kelly Pavlik, Mikkel Kessler, James DeGale, Edwin Rodriguez and Sakio Bika take a pass at fighting the hard hitting Stevenson. Now it’s up to the talented Andre Dirrell, #11 IBF, to see if he wants to be the one to step up and school Stevenson to earn the right to face IBF 168 pound champion Carl Froch in a rematch. I know Dirrell wants to avenge his loss to Froch very badly, because it an incredibly controversial decision and when you got outside of the UK, boxing fans from all around the world had Dirrell beating Froch.

I know Dirrell would easily beat Stevenson if he decides to take the fight. But I’m not sure if Dirrell has an open schedule right now, so he may pass on the fight so that he can face another opponent that he already has in mind. Whatever the case, if Dirrell doesn’t take the fight then former IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute needs to.

It’s perfect fight for him. He already needs a stay busy fight anyway because he can’t just go straight into a rematch with Froch without taking one fight because he was stopped by Froch in their last fight. Stevenson would be perfect for Bute, because Stevenson is a Canadian based fighter just like Bute, and he has a big fan base.

A fight between Bute and Stevenson would be huge in Canada and it would be a fight that would give Bute a big shot in the arm as he goes into his rematch with Froch. Bute would have no problems beating the soft chinned Stevenson. He’d get out of the way of his big shots and likely take him out with either a big body shot or an uppercut to the head.