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Bute Stays Unbeaten With 4th
Round KO
By Nat Gottlieb
The last time Lucian Bute fought Librado Andrade he won a
unanimous decision that was tainted by a 12th round
controversy. This time Bute beat Andrade without any ifs,
ands or buts, knocking out the Mexican with a brutal left
hook to the body with three seconds left in the fourth round
to remain unbeaten (25-0, 20 KOs).
With the stunning memory of his 12th round knockdown by
Andrade in their first fight clearly on his mind, Bute
seemed to fight tentatively through the first three rounds,
boxing well enough to win on the scorecards, but appeared to
lack aggressiveness and confidence. But after being backed
into the ropes by Andrade with just over a minute to go in
the fourth round, Bute lashed out with a short left hook to
the chin that dropped the Mexican and turned the fight around.
Andrade got up from the knockdown and seemed to be unhurt,
but a minute later, with the sellout crowd of 16,500 at the
Pepsi Coliseum in Quebec City roaring, Bute found his groove
and fired a left hook from hell that caught Andrade smack on
the liver and sent him down for the second and final time.
Bute’s victory made something of a sage of HBO commentator
Lennox Lewis. In his pre-fight analysis, Lewis talked about
his shocking knockout loss in 2001 to Hasim Rahman, saying
that “I felt that wasn’t the real Lennox Lewis.” In an
interview earlier in the week with HBO, Bute told Lewis
basically the same thing about his first performance against
Andrade. In post-fight comments to HBO’s Max Kellerman Bute
said, “I felt exactly like Lennox felt. The first fight was
an accident. Tonight my fans saw the real Lucian Bute.”
And what they saw was a budding international star that not
only has impressive boxing skills and knockout power, but
the heart of a champion. With this victory over the top-five
ranked Andrade, the door has opened to several lucrative and
intriguing fights for the Canadian-based Bute. His camp has
talked about luring Kelly Pavlik up to 168, or Bute could go
to 175 to take on fellow countryman and champion Jean Pascal
in what would be a tremendous fight attraction in Quebec. He
could also challenge fellow undefeated champion Chad Dawson
in what would be a fight with huge appeal in North America.
In the co-feature, lightweight Ali Funeka seemed to win by a
comfortable margin over Joan Guzman, but the fight was ruled
a draw when two judges scored it 114-114, while the third
judge had it 116-112 for Funeka.
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