By John G. Thompson:Lucian “La Tombeur” Bute (30-0, 24 KO’s) won a victory over his most experienced opponent to date in Glen “Road Warrior” Johnson (51-16-2, 35 KO’s) this evening at the Pepsi Coliseum in Quebec City, Canada. However, Pier Oliver “Apou” Cote (18-0, 12 KO’s) completely stole the show with his extraordinary second round knockout of Jorge Luis Teron (25-3-1, 17 KO’s) on Showtime Championship Boxing.
Impressively, Bute had won his last six bouts all by stoppage, including his last bout in July, a fourth round knockout of previously undefeated Jean Paul Mendy. From Romania but now living, fighting, and adopted by the city of Montreal, Bute’s resume continues to improve and he is certainly making the case that he is the best super middleweight not currently in the Showtime Super Six Tournament. Some of the names on his resume include Edison Miranda, Jesse Brinkley, Librado Andrade (twice), and Sakio Bika.
Originally from Jamaica and now living in Miami, Florida, the forty-two year old Johnson needs little introduction for boxing fans. With wins over elite light heavyweights like Roy Jones, Jr. and
Antonio Tarver just to name two, the former IBF Light Heavyweight Champion made a career of traveling to his opponents’ home towns, sometimes with very little notice, albeit with mixed results. Johnson is also among the most amiable boxers in the sport and his relentless all action pressure fighting has endeared him to many fans. Johnson has only been stopped once (by living legend Bernard Hopkins back in 1997) during a professional career that goes all the way back to 1993. Johnson lost his last fight via majority decision in June against WBC Super Middleweight Champion Carl Froch.
Johnson looked his age in this fight as he allowed his competitor to set the pace. The first round looked like a feeling out round with both men pawing at the jab. In the final ten seconds, Bute (a southpaw) connected with a strong left and then another, backing Johnson into a corner as the bell rang. Johnson continued to jab away in the second round, and this became his primary and at times only punch of the evening. For the next few rounds both men fought extremely cautiously, making for little action, though Bute probably swept most of the rounds landing with a higher connect percentage.
Bute picked up the pace in the sixth, his growing confidence evident in the way he fought with his hands relaxed down by his waist. In the second half of the seventh Bute smothered Johnson with punches and backed him into the ropes. Johnson simply did not respond with any meaningful punches. The eighth was all Bute backing Johnson up. Ringside commentator Antonio Tarver (who split a win and a loss against Johnson) incredulously remarked, “Glen Johnson can’t pull the trigger.”
Bute landed some powerful shots to Johnson’s head in the ninth. In the tenth, Johnson landed a good right to start the round, but then went back to his jab and Bute started landing hard lefts again, backing Johnson to the ropes. Johnson landed a few left hooks to Bute’s exposed head, but he seemed to lack power at this stage of the fight. Bute went into the twelfth round like a true champion, looking for the knockout against a veteran who has never been knocked out. Bute landed a great left which Tarver said buckled Johnson’s legs, but Johnson came back with a right. Both traded shots for a bit, each man looking for a one-punch knockout in the best action of the bout. Johnson connected with another right, but Bute responded with lefts and rights. One judge scored it 119-108 and the other two a shutout at 120-108 (as I had it).
Incredibly, in the post fight interview Johnson said, “I thought I won the fight. I… I… I used my jab. I beat him to the punch. I hit him with a lot more punches than he hit me with.” In fact, Showtime’s statistics showed Bute out landing Johnson 306 to 128 (with 123 power shots to Johnson’s 47). Johnson also blamed a muscle tear in his right arm, which he said occurred in the fourth round. Bute of course called out the winner of the upcoming Super Six Tournament finale. Regardless of the outcome, I would love to see Bute fight Froch, simply for the thrilling stylist matchup.
Jorge (pronounced “Georgie”) Teron of Bronx, New York possessed a meaningful height advantage (6′ compared to his opponent at 5’8″) but Pier Oliver Cote from Quebec City was too fast for Teron to make use of his reach. Teron had won his last two by stoppage, including a second round stoppage of Jose Luis Karass, since Teron’s only previous TKO loss to the now WBA World Lightweight Champion Brandon Rios in 2010. Teron’s other loss was a close majority decision he avenged via unanimous decision. Cote won his last bout via unanimous eight round decision in July and this was Cote’s fourth fight of 2011. Cote’s nickname “Apou” comes from a supposed resemblance in high school to the character by that name on “The Simpsons.”
Just one minute into the first round, Cote loaded up with a big right which came over a jab of Teron and connected flush. Teron stumbled backwards and Cote went after him. Cote backed Teron to the ropes and hit him with a solid right uppercut to the jaw. Cote continued to throw to the head, with Teron against the ropes, looking for the early stoppage. However, Teron countered with a right hook which connected flush on Cote’s face and Cote stumbled backwards, almost going down. Cote held on for the remainder of the round, pinning Teron to the ropes.
In just the first couple seconds of the second round, as the two met in the center of the ring, Cote hit Teron with a left jab and followed it up with a straight right to the head which sent Teron down for just the third time in Teron’s career. He got up by the count of three, but as the action continued Cote threw a couple punches and connected with a fast left hook to the face, sending Teron down again. Teron looked seriously hurt on the canvas, blood pouring from his nose. He attempted to get up but by the count of seven, Referee Jean Guy Brousseau saw that Teron would not beat the count to his satisfaction, and waved off the fight. Cote probably stole the show from fellow local Lucian Bute.