by James Slater: Last night, on the under card of the superb Joel Casamayor – Michael Katsidis lightweight title fight, Mexico’s Librado Andrade defeated Germany’s Robert Stieglitz in eight exciting rounds. With the win, the 29 year old Andrade earned himself the number one position for a world title shot at IBF super-middleweight champion Lucian Bute of Canada (21-0).
Andrade, who has previously battled the Dane Mikkel Kessler in a WBA and WBC super-middleweight title fight, will now be looking forward to a clash with the unbeaten Bute. Andrade has now won three fights in a row since his points loss to Kessler, and with his aggressive fighting style it is unlikely that the Canadian IBF super-middleweight champion will exactly be relishing the thought of a fight with the straight ahead Mexican warrior.
Andrade, 27-1(21) has thrilled the fans before with his all action approach, and it is doubtful he will fight Bute in any different manner. For example, in his last but one fight, against the tough Yusaf Mack, back in October, the Mexican was down in the first, yet battled back to wear down the 23-1-2 (14) in the 7th round.
In last night’s fight the action also pleased the fans, as Andrade go off to a positive start but then let Germany’s Stieglitz get back into things in the middle rounds. The fight was lively, and the 31-1 (19) Stieglitz (going in) certainly came to fight. However, the Mexican’s superior punch power again took command to earn the 29-year-old the IBF’s number one position at 1 minute and 53 seconds of round number 8.
Andrade, who now lives in California, reportedly began boxing at the age of one year old, and his hero/inspiration is the legendary Julio Cesar Chavez. He will not fear anything the undefeated Bute brings to the table, yet does acknowledge that Kessler gave him his hardest pro-fight so far. Andrade says it was Kessler’s footwork that posed him with the most severe problems back in March of last year in their bout in Denmark. Since then, however, Andrade has been working on his own movement so as to be able to match any future opponent’s ring skills.
This includes Canada’s Lucian Bute, who had better prepare himself for one tough fight when he and the extremely hungry Librado Andrade meet sometime later this year.