Sartison accepted, then.. refused a $400K offer to fight Bute.

"On paper it has won, but technically, this guy just got the knockout in the first round," said Larouche. "It certainly has not proven he deserves to be in the same ring as Lucian. "

"If it hurt him badly, it could seriously jeopardize his career on a psychological level. "

"I find it difficult to promote a fight where the opponent has lost his last battle by knockout," said Larouche. "Especially since Lucian had already beaten Bika and has progressed so much since then. "

"And I will not repeat it enough, Lucian does not want to fight against a guy who posed the first knockout round. "

 

And? Mendy officially won by DQ1. Just because he got dropped, it isn't a forgone conclusion that he would have been stopped. And that is completely irrelevant to Mendy matching up against Magee, where I feel he's a better fighter.

It just doesn't make sense. Not only does Magee bring nothing to the table to prepare him for Ward apart from being a southpaw, he's a poor choice and not a credible opponent.

Bika is a far more credible opponent, and at least he brings a bit more quality overall to the table and can sort of mimick Ward's rough inside fighting.

And Mendy is still a more credible opponent than Magee for me, and he's also a southpaw but clicker, which would better prepare Bute for Ward. And I still feel he brings a little more quality overall for Bute to deal with.

 

What's hard to sell about it? He's unbeaten and he's the IBF #1, he may have got dropped in his last bout but people get dropped all the time, it was no forgone conclusion he was going to get beaten and Bika punched him illegally. He didn't technically lose his last bout via a 1st round knockout, he won it via a 1st round DQ and remains unbeaten.

Being French he might even be appeal to appeal more to a lot of Canadian fight fans, rather than a high-level domestic operator from Northern Ireland who beat a past-prime Mads Larsen to get his title shot.

I'm actually not arguing that Mendy would be a good choice of opponent overall, but in the circumstances, he or Bika or arguably the best available and better than Magee. I'm actually happy for Magee aswell that he's getting his shot, he's been around for years and only been beaten by some of the best, but it just doesn't make sense to me from Bute's perspective.

I suppose I'm making too big a deal out of it, if he's got a 3 fight deal with Showtime and we're only at the semi final stage of the Super Six, I'd imagine that he'll be similarly stuck for opponents for fight 2 when he's still waiting for the Super Six winner, guys like Stieglitz and Sartison still won't fight him and those who've dropped out the Super Six + Kessler & Dirrell are probably all still recovering. He might very well end up fighting either Mendy or Bika in his 2nd Showtime fight.

 

What's so hard to get. Bute won't fight some1 who got embarrassed by Bika in 1 round of boxing.
Bute will need to ko him in 30 seconds to look decent

 

I was just looking through looking for some other opponents, where the hell is Denis Inkin?

 

You really want another fight against Bika ? I've never seen a champ giving a rematch to some random guy he already beated. With all the good opponents in the super 6, the bunch of unavailable guys (Kessler, Dirrell, Taylor) and Stieglitz not interrested, I still prefer to give a shot to the title to a new guy. Bute is good, but not invincible. A surprise could be an option, but it will probably be Brinkley 2.0.

 

good