why didn't ward took the bute fight?

Not fighting Bute was stupid. Bute was a good name he could have added to his resume. Ward gained nothing by not fighting him. Simple as that.

 

The funny thing is since the Froch fight, Bute probably made more money than Ward in his fights. Bute - Pascal was just huge and agaisnt Grachev there was probably about 12,000 people in the stands to.

Since the Froch fight, Bute faced better opposition than Ward!

 

Spot on techno and pretty much summing up the....how to be diplomatic....enigmatic career of Ward's career post S6.

 

I never quite understood why so many people are concerned with fighters bank accounts.

Id rather stick to actual boxing.

Facing good opposition doesnt really count when you're getting beaten around like a rag doll.

Lots of journeymen have a resume full of great fighters.

 

All business aside, Bute would've been a top 4 name (at worst) on Ward's resume. Froch and Kessler are better wins. Then the resume dips down to a drained Chad Dawson. Even if you give the benefit of the doubt that Dawson > Bute at 168, that's still a quality win for Andre.

 

I wish you'd stop referring to bute as an "undefeated world champ"
we both know he was as legitimate as Nathan cleverly was at LHW - a player by virtue of having a belt and beating b-graders - but a player with no top level opponents

like cleverly, bute stepped up and was pulverized

i'm not defending ward's about-face after he won the super six, and I agree with you that ward wouldn't have blown out bute like froch did - but that's immaterial, isn't it?

you make a good point that ward hadn't earnt his shot at Kessler via the super six. can't argue with that.
but ward became the man by beating the top players in the tournament.

bute became something of a 'last man standing' after the tournament - but by default - and it wasn't asking too much that he step up once before having a shot at ward

we all know what happened

 

It's all history.

Bute was a hype in the same vein as many European fighters.

He stepped up to face a contender for the kingdom and was embarrassingly beaten down. Now we hear whining that the King didn't lower himself and whip his ass himself.

Personally, I always knew he was hype and always said that as soon as he stepped up he'd be exposed.

As usual, I was right as rain.

Next hype to get exposed: GGG.

 

Punching power is not the reason why Ward beat a lot of his opponents. Ward would have beaten Bute ala Allan Green. Once Ward gets on the inside and put his head on Bute's chest the fight would have been over for Bute. Ward would have bullied Bute on the ropes, but like always Ward haters would have complained "o Ward is a dirty fighter".

 

Well my point wasn't so blunt as the time in between fights. My point was that he's not slowing down skillwise and probably will be on the top for a very long time.

But to argue with what you said, there's a reason why he had long halts in between those fights. If you do your research you'll understand why.

 

Why is that?

 

Bute looked very good at the time, so much so that Ward would not allow Bute to fight in his personal tournament...............

 

Yeah, he's injury prone and had issues with his promoter. Still doesn't change the fact that he hasn't fought anyone of any significance in almost 19 months. And for that reason there is no way anyone can be certain that his skills haven't suffered, so his career is certainly on hold.

 

I don't think it would have. Bute wasn't going to Oakland when at the time he'd have been the money fighter drawing the huge crowd in Canadia.

Ward cracks me up - was Edwin Rodriguez proven then? B.S. He couldn't dictate terms to Bute as Bute was the draw and so bitched out.

It's a massive shame as it would have been a very easy win for Andre but he's not as confident as someone with his abilities should be.