By Scott Gilfoid: After a year and a half out of the ring and two loses in his last three fights, former IBF 168lb champion Lucian Bute (31-2, 24 KOs) will be making a comeback next month in facing little known 2nd tier fighter Andre Di Luisa (17-2, 13 KOs) in a scheduled 10 round bout at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada.
The 35-year-old Bute cannot lose this fight if he wants to keep his career alive. To be sure, it’s up to him if he wants to keep fighting if he gets beaten by the 33-year-old Italian Di Luisa, but he’d pretty much officially done at that point.
Bute’s face against the obscure Di Luisa will be televised on Premier Boxing Champions on NBCSN. The fight will start at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT for the fans interested in seeing the bout, which appears to be a mismatch on paper, but you never know. As bad as Bute has looked recently, even a limited fighter like Di Luisa might have a chance of sending him down to defeat. In Bute’s last fight against Jean Pascal, he couldn’t pull the trigger on his shots.
It looked like Bute was deathly afraid of getting countered by Pascal. We saw the same thing from Bute the last time he recorded a victory three years ago in 2012 when he defeated Denis Grachev by an unimpressive 12 round decision. It’s hard to believe that Bute hasn’t won a fight in three years. That’s pretty bad. When you see a fighter who hasn’t won a fight in three years, it kind of tell you that it’s over with, doesn’t it?
I just don’t see where Bute can go in the 168 or 175lb divisions, even if he beats the little known Di Luisa. I think Bute can make good money fighting the obscure fighters, because he’s able to draw large crowds to his fights at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. But sooner or later, I think we’re going to see diminishing returns if Bute isn’t able to fight for a world title, or beat some notable contenders.
“I’m ready and looking forward to going back in the ring,” said Bute. “I have not lost my passion and I train six days a week, twice a day. I am excited to perform on the big stage on August 15.”
It’s unclear what the end game is for Bute. Is he being aimed for a world title shot, or is he just going to be used to bring in large crowds at the Bell Centre and good TV ratings for a year or two? I’d like to know because I can’t see him winning another world title. Bute hasn’t looked good since beating Glen Johnson by a 12 round decision in 2011. Bute was stopped in his next fight in losing a 5th round knockout to Carl Froch in May 2012. That was the beginning of a bad spell for Bute, as he struggled in his next fight against Grachev in November 2012, missed all of 2013 due to injuries, and then lost to Pascal in January of 2014. Bute has since been out of action for the past year and half, and you’ve got to wonder how much he has left at this point in his career?
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