Bute ready for Johnson

By Karl Freitag
Photos: Kurt Freitag

Undefeated IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (29-0, 24 KOs) spoke to Fightnews.com on Monday about his November 5th world championship showdown against former light heavyweight champion Glen Johnson live on SHOWTIME® (9 p.m. ET/PT, delayed on the West Coast). Once again, Bute is training in West Palm Beach, Florida. He plans to arrive in Montreal the week of the fight.

Since Bute is the only super middleweight knocking out anybody these days, we asked him if he’s looking to knock out Glen Johnson. “No, my objective on November 5th is to win this fight,” he responded in good English. “To win every round, all twelve rounds and leave the ring as world champion. This is my objective.”

Trainer Stephan Larouche told Fightnews.com later, “I told him to fight one punch at a time, one combination at a time, one round at a time, if the knockout comes, it comes. When a fighter doesn’t fight to knock someone out most of the time it happens. When you try for it you’re not successful doing that. Just be yourself, be smart, respect him, he has a lot of energy in the tank and Glen Johnson will try to wear you down. If you keep doing what you’re good at and keep doing it, it will come naturally and hopefully he’ll make a great statement but Glen Johnson has been competitive, even lately. He’s like he’s younger than his birth certificate. He’s working all the time and we have to have a lot of respect for him because you know with Glen Johnson, what you see is what you get. He wades in with his jab and then he tries to connect with the right hand we all know that you have to be ready for it.”

As for sending a message to the other top super middleweights, Bute stated “This fight is very important for me. I’m very concentrated and focused for this fight, and my message to other super middleweights is ‘I’m coming.’”

The winner of Bute-Johnson could likely meet the winner of the Super Six World Boxing Classic, which concludes on Saturday, Dec. 17 on SHOWTIME. World champions Andre Ward (WBA) and Carl Froch (WBC) will clash in the Super Six Final.

“Very important fight,” said Bute, “both fighters are very good boxers. Froch is a tough boxer and has heavy hands and Ward is slick, fast, smart and attentive. I think Andre Ward would normally win this fight, but this is boxing and there are surprises every time.”

Before settling on Glen Johnson as his opponent, proposed million dollar fights were rejected by Mikkel Kessler and Kelly Pavlik. When asked about that, Lucian stated, “I don’t know. I’m a fighter, a boxer, I train in the gym. My promoter negotiates with his promoter so I don’t know what happened. I’m waiting for the big fights. I’m still here for everybody. I don’t know what happened with Kessler and Pavlik. Maybe next year.”

Larouche told Fightnews.com, “Kessler doesn’t like to be in a war. You know those European fighters they’re good back and forth. Straight punches back, I hit you, you hit me back, but they don’t like to get hit to the body, they don’t like the real American boxing war. I think he could see that he could get hit to the body by Lucian. And Pavlik had some personal issues, it’s not my business, but I think in the near future those fights will happen anyway.”

There is also a good chance those fight will happen in the USA.

“I think our next two or three fights might be in the United States,” said Larouche. “We might have to fight Andre Ward, or Froch or Kessler. I don’t think they’ll like to come to Canada and I think if they are able to sell those fights, we would be pleased to go to New York, or Vegas or Atlantic City. Lucian is open to that.”

October 4th, 2011

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