By Scott Gilfoid: To show boxing fans how much self believe he has in his skills and incredible heart former IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (30-1, 24 KO’s) is basically putting his career on the line in his November 3rd match-up against unbeaten Denis Grachev (12-0, 9 KO’s) at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada.

This isn’t just a soft punching bag that the 32-year-old Bute is facing in his comeback fight; this is one of the hardest hitting most talented fighters in the light heavyweight division in Grachev. Bute doesn’t care. He knows the kind of talent he has and he doesn’t just want an easy fight for his first bout back since being stopped by Carl Froch in the 5th round last May.

Grachev, a former two time World kickboxing, four time former Russian kickboxing and former IKF Muay Thai light cruiserweight world champion, is just now hitting his stride in his five-year pro career. We saw that with his incredibly impressive 8th round TKO over Ismayl Sillakh last April. Sillakh is one of the top five light heavyweights in the division, and yet Grachev wore him down and blasted him out with some huge combinations in the 8th.

That fight showed you both the kind of power that Grachev has and also the kind of talent. No one has done this to Sillakh before or since. Grachev was like a man possessed in that fight, walking through Sillakh’s best shots so that he could land his own big shots. It one of those Rocky type fights that sticks in your mind for years. Grachev is a can’t miss future world champion at light heavyweight in my view.

Bute is coming off the worst performance of his career in his last fight against Carl Froch in England. It just looks like Bute overlooked Froch, and thought he could beat him by fighting in a primitive caveman type of fight that suited Froch’s style. However, it was the wrong approach for Bute, a refined fighter with incredible talent, impeccable timing and beautiful foot movement. Instead of using all of his god given talents, Bute perched himself along the ropes and tried to fight Froch from this position for five rounds. It was a crazy way of trying to fight because negated all of Bute’s talents. With Bute just standing there in one spot like a bird with it’s wings no longer working, Bute was almost helpless at defending himself against Froch’s ceaseless onslaught. The fight ended in the 5th with Bute still on his feet but the referee deciding to halt the fight.

At the time of the stoppage, Bute was being given a standing eight count and Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn had rushed into the ring during this time. The referee seemed to be unaware that Hearn was in the ring while the fight was still going on, which is unfortunate for Bute because in a lot of cases a referee would have disqualified Froch for that move by his promoter. But the referee failed to see this, and Bute’s team showed a lot of class by not pushing for the disqualification even though I feel they should have just to follow the rules.