By William Mackay: According to boxing news from the Canadian site Lapresse.ca, the International Boxing Federation (IBF) will be trying to get IBF super middleweight champion Carl Froch (29-2, 21 KO’s) to face his new mandatory challenger Adonis Stevenson (19-1, 16 KO’s) in the first part of 2013.

Froch, however, already has plans of trying to fight a rematch with former IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute. Following that, Froch wants to fight Mikkel Kessler and Andre Ward in rematches, and there’s talk that Froch would then retire once he got those bouts out of the way.

Froch doesn’t appear to be interested in facing Stevenson at all, let alone in the first part of 2013 before the Bute rematch. Unless the IBF gives Froch an exception to let the Bute fight take place in early 2013, we could see Froch dump the IBF strap rather than take a risky fight against the hard hitting southpaw Stevenson.

Bute’s promoter Jean Bedard believes that the IBF will grant the exception request given the time that Bute has previously held the IBF 168 lb title.

If the IBF grants Froch an exception to fight Bute, Kessler and Ward, then Stevenson could be waiting for pretty much all of 2013 before he eventually gets a title shot, and even then it might not be against Froch depending on whether he’s beaten along the way or if he vacates the title after fighting those bouts.

Bute has to win his fight next month against Denis Grachev on November 3rd, and Froch has to win his bout on November 17th against Yusaf Mack (31-4-2, 17 KO’s) for the Froch-Bute rematches to take place. As you can see it’s not all that cut and dried. There’s a lot of things that need to happen before we know how the cards will fall. But you can expect that Stevenson will either have to wait or else he could be fighting for the vacant IBF title if Froch gives up the belt rather than face him after the Mack fight.