Can Bute make his name outside Quebec?
Lucian Bute is an undefeated world champion of more than four years, so highly regarded by the boxing media that he's ranked eighth in the Yahoo! Sports pound-for-pound poll. He's got a knockout percentage of 82.8 and he's a feared body puncher.
He's hardly a household name outside of Quebec, though, and while he's mobbed wherever he goes in La Belle Province, he's just another face in the crowd in places like Las Vegas and New York.
So, despite all the accomplishments, despite all of the accolades, Bute enters his bout against veteran Glen Johnson on Saturday in Quebec City still having much to prove as a fighter.
Bute has reigned as a champion in the super middleweight division since Oct. 19, 2007, when he beat Alejandro Berrio to win the International Boxing Federation belt. Since then, he's successfully defended his belt eight times, against a collection of just-not-there opponents or guys who had seen their best days.
He's faced no one like Carl Froch or Andre Ward, the finalists in Showtime's Super Six tournament, which concludes on Dec. 17 in Atlantic City, N.J. He hasn't met other elite super middleweights like Mikkel Kessler, Arthur Abraham or Kelly Pavlik.
It hasn't always been his fault, given that guys like Kessler and Pavlik have turned down fights against him, but in boxing, who one has beaten is clearly more significant than one's record.
Saturday's fight against Johnson thus will, in many ways, be a sort of a coming-out party for Bute. He'll have the opportunity to prove himself against a man American fans know very well, who brutally knocked out Roy Jones and pushed guys like Chad Dawson to the limit.
Bute knows Johnson well, having sparred with him frequently over the last two years, and Bute trainer Stephane Larouche knows all too well what a difficult task is ahead of him.
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"When you fight Glen Johnson, you know, it's funny, because what you see is what you get," Larouche said. "It's not complicated, but he's violent, rude, rough and resilient. That's a good way to describe Glen Johnson.
"With a guy like him, you cannot take anything for granted. You know when you play pool? It's not done until the last ball is in the pocket, and it's the same thing with Glen Johnson. Glen's got nothing to lose. He's got a good right hand, a long one, a surprising one. He's been hitting guys with this, we know that."
Bute, though, needs to avoid it enough to land his own shots and win the fight. He's in line to face the Ward-Froch winner early next year, provided he disposes of Johnson, and he needs to score a convincing victory over a world-class opponent to prove he's deserving of the accolades he's received.
He gets it, and he also gets the need to put on a show. He has become a fan favorite in Quebec by, as he says, "always delivering." He fought his last bout in his native Romania against Jean-Paul Mendy, but his four fights prior, three of which were at Montreal's Bell Centre and one at the Pepsi Coliseum in Quebec City, averaged 13,514 fans.
But he's fought 14 of his last 15 bouts in the province and hasn't gotten exposure outside of his adopted home. He's eager to take his act on the road and prove himself against the elite of the elite.
"My dream has been to fight in the U.S. in a great boxing market like New York and Las Vegas," he said. "My first objective was to win a world championship. I've done that. My next goal is to fight in front of the U.S. crowd in a big fight."
To get that big fight, he needs to get past Johnson, the seemingly ageless veteran who doesn't win every time but never makes for an easy night.
But Bute has the one thing that most boxers don't – a formidable body assault – and that has the potential to make a significant difference, particularly against a soon-to-be 43-year-old such as Johnson.
"I think a body shot is the hardest punch to receive as a fighter," Bute said. "I don't know why, but a lot of fighters don't want to go to the body a lot. They prefer to hit the head. I prefer to hit the body and then the head. It's personal to each fighter, but it makes so much sense to me. When you are hitting to the body, you can see the [energy] going out. It slows them down, for sure."
Despite the obvious respect between them and the budding friendship they've developed, Bute will not hesitate to finish if he gets the opportunity.
This is perhaps the biggest bout of his life and he's not going to allow a friendship to impact his performance.
"I really cheered for him when he fought Allan Green and also when he fought Carl Froch," Bute said of Johnson. "But with this, my career is on the line. It has nothing to do with respect or the friendship. If I have to fight, I'm going to give it my all. There are no friends in the ring; we're going to be friends after the bout. They can’t take away what I've been working for."
Johnson knows what he's up against. He's seen Bute at his best; he's felt his power, struggled with his quickness. Johnson, though, has a way of making elite fighters look less-than-elite by turning up the pressure and keeping it on high for 36 minutes.
He is going to try that same approach on Saturday and that may be what tells the story about the kind of fighter Bute really is.
"He's a great fighter," Johnson said of Bute. "He has a lot of talents, a lot of skills. He shows a lot of guts in his fights. He has fast hands. He's strong. He ranks among the best guys, but this is not sparring, this is fighting. It's a whole different level of fighting."
That's exactly what Bute hopes to prove Saturday.
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