Lucian Bute could choose Carl Froch for his next opponent

By Michael Collins: Carl Froch is waiting to see if he gets selected by IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute for his next fight. WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward (25-0, 13 KO’s) says IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (29-0, 24 KO’s) needs to beat some A level fighters before he’ll bother fighting him because of how soft Bute’s opposition has been during the past three years while Ward was sweating it out in the Super Six tournament finals.

Bute hasn’t picked out his next opponent but there’s a possibility that Carl Froch could be the one that gets fight with him. Showtime may or may not choose to televise the Bute-Froch fight if that’s the opponent that Bute chooses. If so, then the two fighters will have to be satisfied with the gate money they get for the Montreal based and whatever television money that they can receive for this.

Other than Froch, the choices for Bute are rather bleak at this time because most of the best fighters are tied up with fights right now and Ward, who isn’t fighting, doesn’t want to fight Bute until he proves himself. It puts Bute in a bad situation where he pretty much has to continue fighting the B level fighters that he’s been fighting for the past three years.

There’s Froch, Anthony Dirrell and Andre Dirrell for Bute to fight. Andre Dirrell still needs at least one to two more tune-ups before he’s ready for a fight of that magnitude and Anthony Dirrell is already the mandatory challenger for Ward. It’s unclear whether he would agree to fight Bute if the fight were offered to him.

It’s doubtful that Bute’s promoter would offer the bout to Anthony because he’s still an unknown fighter among boxing fans and he’s a more difficult matchup than Froch because of his hand speed, power, defense and pinpoint accuracy. It would be a huge step up from the guys that Bute’s been fighting and it would run counter to the way he’s been matched all these years. Bute is never put in with fast or really powerful guys. It’s usually Froch-types.

If Bute selects Froch, then he could be shooting himself in the foot as far as Showtime and Ward go, because it’s not the fight that Showtime wants to televise and Ward wants to see Bute fight Dirrell.