By Jason Kim: This Saturday night, International Boxing Federation (IBF) super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (26-0, 20 KO’s) faces what is likely the biggest puncher of his career in Edison Miranda (33-4, 29 KO’s) at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada. Bute, 30, has never been in with a slugger like Miranda before and it will be a real test to see if Bute can get out of this fight without taking punishment and possibly getting knocked down. Up to this point, the biggest puncher that Bute has faced in his seven year pro career was against Alejandro Berrio in 2007.

Although Bute ended up stopping Berrio in the 11th round in that fight, he took a lot of big shots and ended up having his left eye all puffed up by the end of the brutal fight. Miranda is at a point where he can’t afford to lose if he wants to stay in the thick of things in the super middleweight division. He has a good chin and a strong will to win. It’s safe to say that Miranda has his back against the wall and can’t take another loss like the one he suffered last year in his 12 round decision defeat against Andre Ward.

That was a tough defeat for Miranda to take because he was never even remotely competitive in that fight and looked badly over-matched from the very start. Some boxing fans consider Bute to be the best fighter in the super middleweight division. However, Bute doesn’t have the hand speed of some of the younger fighters like Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell. This could be a case of fans giving Bute too much respect based on his wins over Librado Andrade, Fulgencio Zuniga and William Joppy.

It’s fair to say that Bute got very lucky in his first fight with Andrade in 2008, escaping the fight after being knocked down in the 12th round by Andrade. Bute appeared to have received a long count by the Canadian referee and still was unable to stand up without needing to lean against the ropes once he got back to his feet. For some reason, the referee failed to ask Bute to walk towards him to prove that he could walk without staggering. The fight ended right there, with the time running out. Bute looked badly hurt as he walked back to his corner moments after the fight.

That bout proved that Bute is vulnerable to big shots. Miranda, who hits much harder than Andrade, is going to be a constant threat to Bute for as long as long as this fight goes on. What Miranda has to do is to make sure that he hits Bute as much as possible and to land with all his strength every time he makes contact. If Miranda can hit Bute as often as Andrade did in his first fight with Bute, there is an excellent chance that he’ll be able to take Bute out or at the very least hurt him enough where he’ll be groggy and weaker.

Miranda will have to stay on top of Bute, because the Canadian based fighter likes to hit and run. Bute literally will run away if he’s chased and he’s very good at throwing punches while running. Miranda, if he can stay on him the entire time, take Bute’s shots without going down or backing off, then I think this fight will end up being very close. Miranda could end up taking Bute out with a big shot in the later rounds when Bute tires out and starts showing his age.