By Paul Strauss: Fans knew there was a risk this match up could be boring. They knew Lucien Bute 29-0 (23) was bigger, faster and much more skilled than Johnson. Bute wanted to shine in this fight, and even though he and Johnson are friends, he very much wanted to win decisively by KO or TKO. He wasn’t able to accomplish that, but he still pitched a shutout. Judges were hard pressed to give Glen Johnson 51-15-2 (35) even one round. The only way the fight was going to be interesting was for Johnson to be willing to take the necessary risks to make it so. He wasn’t.
Consequently, the fight was almost totally one-sided in favor of Bute. He was the only one who was willing to take risks. The initial rounds were fought with way too much caution and respect. Johnson wasn’t pressing, as he normally does, and as a result much of what he was trying to do fell short. You wondered (and hoped) he was trying to lull Bute into some kind of trap, hoping to land an overhand right. It never happened. Johnson did jab, and tried to follow with attempted rights to Bute’s body, but he neglected to include a left hook. He wasn’t causing Bute any problems.
As the fight progressed, it became painfully obvious that Johnson was digging a big hole for himself. It was debateable whether he had won one round. He never closed the distance. He also appeared to be reluctant to counter, because on those occasions when he did so, his counters were countered. Apparently, he didn’t like it. One good thing, Referee Mark Nelson never had to break them, so there was plenty of sustained action, mostly on the part of Bute..
In the post=fight interview, Glen told Jim Gray he thought he had won the fight? Gray was taken back a bit and asked, “On what basis do you think you won the fight?” Johnson told Gray that Bute never hit him, and that he won the fight with his jab. He further explained that he hurt his right hand in the fourth round, and that’s why he didn’t use it more. He held his two hands up for inspection to prove that his right hand was swollen.
When Lucien Bute was asked by Gray why he held Johnson so ineffective and unable to land his right, Bute said he took away Johnson’s jab, and added that if Glen can’t land his jab, then he can’t land the follow up right hand. It appeared Bute was more correct in his appraisal of what occurred. Johnson was kept flat footed and off balance by Bute. In the latter half of the fight, Bute presented himself, in close, right in front of Johnson, but Johnson could not hit him. It was a beautiful demonstration of talent and skill. From the southpaw stance, Bute would drop his right hand low, and lean in and down to his left. When Johnson would try to nail him, Bute would block, slip, snap away or slide off to the side away from the punches and then he would counter with his own shots.
Concerning Johnson’s right hand, the truth is for much of the fight his attempts to land the punch, it fell short. When close enough to do so, he often would get beat to the punch by Bute’s right hook. Several times the punch knocked him off balance and seemed to bother him. As the fight rolled on, Bute’s left uppercut started to get through to Johnson’s body. He was steadily getting worn down. Bute wasn’t about to let up either. He continued to press the action in the twelfth and final round. But, Johnson is a hard nut to crack, and it was obvious Bute wasn’t going to stop him It was also obvious to everyone (but Johnson) at the Pepsi Coliseum, Quebec City, Quebec Canada, that Bute won the fight. The official scoring was as follows: two judges at 120-108 and the third judge had it 119-109. Now Bute can hopefully look forward to a meeting with the winner of the Andre Ward vs Carl Froch Super Six Championship Fight. Bute believes Ward will win that fight by decision.
The real excitement of the night came with Pier Olivier Cote’s 17-0 (12) second round destruction of Jorge (Georgie) Teron 24-3-1 (17). The 6′ 1/2″ Teron had a sizable height advantage of Cote, but he also had a lazy, slow jab. Teron managed to get away with it for two plus rounds with Brandon Rios back in February of 2010, but Cote feasted on it. Cote’s first big shot was a hard right hand shot over the jab that wobbled Teron. Cote jumped on the attack. He caught Teron again. This time with an uppercut.. He pounced on Teron like a cat on a mouse, but he got careless, and Teron threw a blind, wild right that landed. This time it was Cote’s turn to be wobbled.
Round two began with Cote coming out fast. He threw a one-two. Both landed. First a good hard jab, and then a straight right. Down went Teron. He was in big trouble. Cote showed off his speed and explosiveness by unleashing a combination. First, he went to the body and finished with a beautful left hook to the head. The punch exploded against Teron’s right jaw and nose, and down he went into the ropes. It was obvious to everyone that he wasn’t getting up. Thirty-three seconds into the second round the fight ended. Cote proved himself to be a real threat to anyone in the light welterweight division. Saturday’s victory added the IBF Inter-Continental light welterweight title to his laurels.