I'd have to go with Ward. Both are excellent fighters. Ward is more versatile , and has faced the more diverse opposition.
Really? Other than kessler. who? And more versatility? How so? I don't see ward counter punching his oppoents to the canvass. Bute has it all. Ward, just alot of flash but not much fight. Bute stops ward in less than 10 rounds. Bute aint no disgruntled mentally weak kessler. Besides, while styles do make fights the one common oppoenent is miranda. Miranda made ward fight a tough fight, but bute made it look like a walk in the park.
First off, you picked Kessler to wipe the floor with Ward. Second, Ward completely domintated Miranda. Third, Ward can counter, he can fight on the outside, and he's an excellent inside fighter as well. I've only seen Bute play the role of counterpuncher. If you look at his record, he's faced mostly straight foward punchers who were recently trashed. Those are the type of guys you want to be in there with if you're a counterpuncher like Bute. When a guy keeps fighting the same type of fighter, that's a red flag. It may be a coincidence, or his team may feel he's not versatile enough to take on a variety of styles.
Ward has never been knocked out by a slow plodding zombie so I'm going that way. I'm not knocking Bute, the man is clearly a very skilled and dangerous fighter and deserves credit for his avenging his first loss in such spectacular fashion.
You definitely need to watch most of Bute's fights, not just from Andrade I up to now. All the ones amongst us that have seen all his 26 bouts know that Bute has shown clearly through time that he can be the boxer-puncher, the counterpuncher or the man pressing the action, he is a very versatile boxer, so is Ward for the record. Bute has mostly looked lately like the counterpuncher because of the kind of opposition he faced. For instance, against Andrade, the blue print to beat him is to be the effective counterpuncher. Besides Kessler, what fighters have really been so wonderful to boast about on Ward's record ? Should we start waving a red flag when a big part of Ward's inside game against Kessler had to do with headbutting ? I personally don't take that into consideration but if you want to red flag **** that's truly bull****, well we can find some with anyone...
