Who's next for Lucian Bute?

What's next for Bute? .... well July 25 will be his mandatory in Bucharest, Romania against the Bika - Brinkley eliminator winner.
Second fight will highly probably NOT take place higher than 170lb. Bute and his trainer S. Larouch say he doesn't want to leave the SMW division yet, there are at least 5 or 6 fighters worthy to battle at this weight class. As boxers get older (Bute is 30) it gets harder to loose the weight, so no passing to 175lb yet. Chad Dawson (27 yo) should come down from his ivory tower to fight Bute, if he wants to face him soon. Pascal would do it for sure ... he is young as well and was SMW a year ago. If not let them take a chill pill and Bute will climb to LHW in 2-3 years from now, after cleaning the floor with the Supper Sicks. (Yumm, yumm ... what a tasty meal).
Ok, lets get back to the future opposition... The super six guys that wont make the finals, could be a decent workout for Bute. He could invite them for sparring for a bigger fight or face them if they refuse .
Robert Stieglitz could be an interesting target as well. He has a belt and is not worthy of it.... so .... get your ass into the ring... In the last years, Bute was not very active... 5 fights in 25 months. ( http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?hum...3046&cat=boxer ) So if he's getting ready for the Supper Sicks Sundae Cherry, might as well fight more often to stay sharp. He could do Miranda, Bika and Stieglitz by the end of the hurricane season... Who knows they might even name one after him...
Bernard, Bernard, Bernard ... what an awesome career ... why, oh tell me why do you wanna end up like the most respected Ali.
PREDICTION: if Bute - B-Hop happens, Berny will suffer his first and last KTFO of his career... Even though ppl don't really want to see this fight ... HBO is gonna present it if it will come to it! And this time, ppl will go to see Bute not Hopkins, (if this happens it will be in Autumn '10 in Montreal), this is why the fight might take place.
In any way... who ever the F#$% Lucian is gonna fight in the next year and a half or so... it will not bring him recognition and full respect from the American and European boxing fans. Nobody will be hot enough, world class enough, or legendary enough to prove his supremacy, which don't get me wrong, I'm questioning myself!!! Bute is a top 3 SMW, any way u put it. At this level, styles make fights,we all know that ... But I have some questions for you ...

How important is adaptability in a boxer's arsenal ? IMO determining a boxer's capacity to adapt during a fight to his opponent's fight style is a great path to knowing the outcome of the battle. Who are the most adaptable boxers at SMW during the last 10 - 15 years or more? What were they doing right? Can we compare them to the current SMWs? Food for thought!

 

cool post :good

 

Thanks West

 

The options:

1) Hopkins. He would have to concede a lot to get Bernard at 168 in Montreal. And except for money, Bute doesn't have a lot to gain from that fight.

2)Taylor: if he comes out of retirement, he's still the boxer that got KO twice against Froch and Abraham.

3)Williams: he said that he wants to fight anybody from 147 to 168. If he can make a deal with either Martinez or Pavlik, for the big bucks, he could go up to 168...

Young prospects like Don George, Marcus Johnson, Anthony Dirrell could be an interesting challenge.

Maybe it will simply be the winner of Bika-Brinkley...

 

Hopkins and Taylor are done, Williams won't fight above 160. Those prospects you mentioned are not ready for Bute. I said Dirrell, but the idea of Dirrell fighting for two titles this year seems unfeasible.

I think Bute should fight the IBF mandatory then await the winner of Pascal-Dawson.

 

Pascal and Dawson fight at 175, forget it ... wont happen unless they agree to fight at 168 or 170. Bute doesn't want to change!

 

I'm a Hopkins fan and Hopkins doesn't look p4p anymore. He's in danger of getting ko'd for the first time and any of the super 6 at the moment has a chance of beating him now. He looked awful vs. Jones.

Bute simply just needs to keep busy until he can fight the Super 6 winner or runner ups. Froch would probably make him the most money as both have large fan bases. Froch is a faster, stronger, psycho version of Andrade so I'm liking Froch's chances if he ever fights Bute.

 

Bute started his career as a LHW, he was campaigning at 175, but decided to move down to 168 because it was more lucrative. But if Bute wanted to he can move up to 175 with no problem.

 

Or WBO champion Robert Stieglitz.

 

Bute fought at 175 early in his career, because he was fighting more often and didn't want to lose all the weight every time. A lot of boxers do that when they begin. You can't force a guy to go from 185 t 168 and back to 185 every month or so, it's not healthy.

 

Anthony Dirrell buddy. André's brother. He's at SMW and undefeated.

 

Well, Interbox said the same thing after the Andrade fight and it took sooo long to sign the Miranda fight...

I prefer to think I'm not gonna know soon, that way I won't be disappointed.