By Michael Collins: Former WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (28-2, 20 KO’s) wants nothing better than to impress his home boxing fans at the Nottingham Arena on May 26th by defeating unbeaten IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (30-0, 24 KO’s), and then turning around and fighting him again in another big money fight this time in Bute’s adopted country of Canada in fight that will take place in Montreal.
However, the odds are stacked against Froch being able to defeat Bute, because he’s not fast enough or skilled enough to beat Bute. Froch could be the toughest opponent that Bute will have faced up to this point in the pro game, but that’s probably not going to be enough for Froch to win this fight. What we do know is Froch isn’t going to beat Bute by out-pointing him. You don’t beat Bute like that unless you’re someone like Andre Ward. Froch doesn’t have the same kind of boxing skills as Ward, as we saw in Froch’s 12 round decision loss to Ward last December.
Froch did give Ward more trouble than anyone that I can recall, aside from Sakio Bika. But it wasn’t enough. Froch couldn’t handle Ward’s jab, his hand speed or his inside game. Bute doesn’t have nearly as good an inside game as Ward, and he won’t even try to fight Froch from that distance. Bute will look to jab from the outside and land quick shots and constantly back away before Froch has had enough time to land his own shots.
Froch can land something if he times Bute’s attacks and gets him right when he’s coming in to land hi own shots. But you have to be good at sensing when Bute’s about to throw a shot because he uses a lot of feints to get you off guard and then he’s really good at countering when his opponent tries to land anything. Froch is going to get hit with some really big shots in the way of uppercuts and body punches and it’s going to be tough for him to take those kinds of shots without getting hurt.