By Scott Gilfoid: As expected, IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale (21-1, 14 KOs) will be taking a soft first defense against a past his best #5 WBC, #11 IBF Lucian Bute (32-2, 25 KOs) on November 14th in a fight that will be taking place in Quebec at the Videotron Centre of Quebec, according to rds.ca. Bute and DeGale still haven’t signed the contract for the fight as of yet.
The undercard of the DeGale-Bute fight is supposed to have some well-known fighters, which isn’t surprising.
Bute previously held the International Boxing Federation super middleweight title from 2007 to 2012, until losing it to Carl Froch by a 5th round knockout in a one-sided fight.
There are a number of higher ranked younger fighters with arguably more talent than Bute has going for him that deserve a world title shot. Even if DeGale wanted to take on a fringe contender to pad his record so that he could keep his IBF title, he could have still found someone better than Bute for the fight.
I think the following contenders are far more deserving of a world title shot than Bute: Jesse Hart, Gilberto Ramirez, Julius Jackson, J’Leon Love, Tyron Zeuge, Patrick Nielsen, Anthony Dirrell, and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. But of course, the choice of Bute is driven more for money than DeGale and Hearn looking for an opponent that would give them a competitive fight. Bute is a popular fighter in Canada, and still capable of selling out areas despite his faded talent and lack of success in the last four years of his career.
DeGale has won his last 11 fights in beating the following fighters: Andre Dirrell, Marco Antonio Periban, Brandon Gonzalez, Gerorg Khatchikian, Dyah Davis, Stjepan Bozic, Sebastien Demers, Fulgencio Zuniga, Hadillah Mohoumadi, Cristian Sanavia, and Piotr Wilczewski. Many of those names are difficult to pronounce and even more difficult to spell. What we’re looking at here is a list of soft opponents as far as the eye can see with the exception of Andre Dirrell, who should have beaten DeGale if not for the judging and the referee’s performance in the fight.
Honestly, I can’t see what Bute has done to earn a title shot against Bute or any world champion. Bute has lost 2 out of his last 4 fights, and he’s only had 4 fights total in the last 4 years. That’s one fight a year. Even world champions are busier than that. The only two fighters that Bute has beaten in the last four years were Denis Grachev and Andrea Di Luisa.
Those aren’t exactly top tier talent, are they? Bute defeated Di Luisa by a 4th round knockout last August in a fight on Premier Boxing Champions. What was sad and quite disappointing in watching the Bute-Di Luisa fight was how Bute was stunned by one of the shots from the little known Di Luisa in the 4th round.
The fight was supposed to have been a mismatch, but Bute even had problems dealing with Di Luisa’s shots. Last year in January 2014, Bute was soundly beaten by Jean Pascal in losing by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision. Bute looked totally shot in that fight.
The 35-year-old Bute is the contender that DeGale’s promoter Eddie Hearn has been mentioning as a possible opponent for DeGale ever since he narrowly defeated Andre Dirrell last May by a close 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 114-112, 117-109 and 114-112.
That fight was decided on two fateful occurrences. The first being the second knockdown of Dirrell in the 2nd round, which was actually a shove by DeGale rather than a punch. The referee blew the call by scoring it as a knockdown rather than a case of Dirrell being shoved to the canvas.
The second controversial occurrence was the judges giving DeGale the 12th round, when it was clearly a round that Dirrell had dominated. It was these two things that led to DeGale getting the win in a fight that Dirrell should have won had the referee made the right call in the 2nd and the judges given Dirrell the 12th round like I had.
DeGale will have no problems beating Bute because the Canadian based fighter is totally shot in my view, and well past his prime. I’ll be very surprised if Bute can even make it through the training camp without going down with an injury that will cause the fight to be postponed for a long time.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Bute suffers two injuries that cause a second postponement. He’s at an age where the injuries are coming one after another. That’s largely the reason why Bute has only fought four times in the past four years.
I hope for Hearn’s sake that he knows what he’s getting himself into by choosing Bute as DeGale’s next opponent instead of someone like Andre Dirrell or Anthony Dirrell, two dependable fighters that can be counted on to make it through a training camp in one piece.
Comments are closed.