I watched on Showtime, man. :conf Maybe I'll check out some of the BN version if it winds up on Youtube (but honestly that wasn't near good enough to sit through all 12 rounds of it again). I grade Bute a B-, Johnson a D. Neither performed at their best. Bute didn't want to hurt or embarrass his friend. As for Johnson, he just doesn't have much in the tank anymore.
Johnson wasn't risking anything, he felt Bute's power and tried something... don't know what, but he wasn't able to hit Bute with his power punches, couldn't set Bute for those punches.At one point, even tho clearly leading on scorecards Bute is the one who goes iside.
Do you think Bute didn't push more because Johnson was his friend. I tend to think it was more respect than friendship. Bute respected and old veteran and considered him dangerous until the end.
I'm not sure about your reasoning for why Bute didn't step it up, but I tend to agree with the grading.
It's kind of true that I see some short punches with little power late in the fight but.... who knows.
I didn't really think he gave Froch all he could handle, tbh. I had Froch up by four rounds, and while it was somewhat competitive throughout I never had the feeling Johnson was going to win.
Lucian Bute injured his left hand in the 9th round he said for the Romanian TV thats why he didnt push for the KO.
I don't think he would have stopped Johnson anyhow. You can't point to any one moment in that fight where Johnson was taking flush, hard punches on a consistant basis. It was relatively comfortable for both men for the majority, in my opinion.
The commentary was embarrassing for the Bute fight, sometimes towards the end of the fight Glen was sticking the jab in Butes face while Bute wasn't doing much and they were saying how great Bute was piling it on. Not acknowledging Johnson's punches whatsoever. He never looked close to stopping Glen but they were just waffling on about him going through the gears and he's about to stop Glen in the next round.