By Horea “A. R.” Ursu – In the autumn of last year, Montreal’s IBF supermiddleweight titlist Lucian Bute faced a bona-fide world class fighter for the first time in his career. After giving everything he had for twelve rounds minus two seconds, he was knocked down hard but found the extra bit of strength required to clear the floor and beat the count, putting the decision in the hands of the judges. The gods of boxing were definitely on Bute’s side that night… and some rightly say the referee was too. Still, Bute won fair and square, even though the referee had leaned towards him during the fight. In my preview of the fight, I wrote that it would not turn out to be a simple bull-fight, cooked up to make Bute look good. Well, Bute definitely wasn’t made to look good, and it was far from an easy fight, but it did turn out to be a good ol’ bull-fight nonetheless. And like all good bull-fights, it ultimately followed the script – the brave, honourable bull learnt the game too late for his efforts to be deservedly rewarded..
I also wrote that nothing but a career best performance from Bute would be enough to beat Andrade. Did Bute give a career best performance that night? I think so. Librado Andrade didn’t, though. After acting friendly and modestly prior to the fight, Andrade went one step too far in playing the role of the honourable, respectful challenger. By allowing Bute to bend the rules in his favour and clinch to his heart’s content for the greater part of the fight without roughing Bute up on the inside in the clinches when he had the opportunity to do so, Andrade tied his own hands behind his back. Even when he realised the referee would not penalise Bute for clinching excessively or for lifting his leg in the clinch (!!), Andrade merely gave Bute an embarrassed look and patted him on the back with his free hand, waiting patiently and meekly for Bute to stop holding and to push him away or for the referee to break them apart. The fifth round was one-sided and things weren’t looking good for Bute. His corner helped him pull himself together, though and Bute won the sixth. Andrade congratulated Bute at the end of the following rounds for fighting more cleanly and bravely. Incredibly, it really looked like Andrade was encouraging Bute to do his best because he liked and respected him so much, as a person. Andrade’s plan was not to beat a sub-par version of Bute, nor to steal the title; he wanted to give Bute every chance to shine and to beat him fair and square, by late stoppage.
It took for a trip and push to be wrongly called a knockdown in the tenth round for Andrade to realise he wasn’t in a fair fight between friends, as he had hoped. Bute wrongly thought he had Andrade hurt and put some power behind his punches and started fighting, but this time, Andrade did not hold back. For the remainder of the fight, Andrade fought more aggressively and when Bute tried to clinch, he punched Bute with his free hand or fought free and roughed Bute up with flush hooks more than usual, and that had Bute reeling. The referee did his best to give Bute some breathing space by stepping in during the roughest of these exchanges. With fifty seconds left on the clock in the tenth, Andrade could very well have taken Bute out had the action been allowed to continue normally. As things stood, Bute took advantage of the break in action, fought hard, clinched, boxed and dug in deep, took some more punishment in the process and for once gave Andrade a really good fight before returning to his corner looking half-spent. The only one smiling after the break was Andrade.
Bute started the eleventh doing the same things he had done for most of the fight: he moved well, turned Andrade, threw arm-punches in combination and clinched. The crowd, started celebrating and singing, relieved; Bute was back on track, and he had shown his heart and pride too by accepting to fight Andrade in the previous round. But Andrade was wearing Bute down in the clinches more and more. Ever more frustrated with the repeated clinching that was ignored by the referee, Andrade lost his cool and pushed Bute like a rag doll against the ropes in order to free himself. He got a stern warning. The pressure that Andrade was putting on him was getting too much for the tired Bute. It was getting harder and harder for Bute to move around the ring. If in the early rounds Bute had managed to turn Andrade whilst pushing him away and still have time to fire off a combination before Andrade could get his bearings, now, Bute could barely push Andrade back before he was forced to brace himself for another assault. And still, Andrade kept coming strongly, with a determined look on him. Bute put everything behind his punches to the body in a last-ditch attempt to stop Andrade in his tracks, but Andrade responded in kind. The bell interrupted them, to everyone’s disappointment. The fight was alight!
But why am I reminding you of all this now? Well, Bute vs. Andrade raised many questions about Bute, the fighter, most of which were only partially answered. We all looked for conclusive answers since, but in vain. I wish to take this opportunity to attempt to give my answers, as follows:
Question 1: Did Bute deal well with the pre-fight pressure?
Bute is generally a fairly nervous, slow starter, but against Andrade he seemed to come into the ring slightly more tense, more emotional, more unfocussed and with a lower morale than usual – he even started lifting Andrade’s leg in the clinches he himself initiated to put Andrade off balance and stop him from roughing him up on the inside. To what extent had the hard task of taking on Andrade get to Bute before he even got into the ring? To what extent did Andrade’s early performance depress Bute’s state of mind and feeling? My guess is that Bute became even more disheartened when he realised how aggressive, effective, strong and tough Andrade was, when he realised his punches had little effect on keeping Andrade at bay, that his strategy of clinching was failing and that he fared even worse when he tried to take on Andrade on the inside. To Bute’s credit, it should be pointed out that after a bad fifth round, he started to compose himself and to take control of the fight. Let us also not forget that it had taken Bute four-five rounds to settle before taking control against Sakio Bika too. Whilst this aspect should not be exaggerated, particularly in light of the fact that Bute won all but one of the opening five rounds against Andrade, it will remain a concern that Bute doesn’t settle earlier in a fight, especially if he decides to fight in his opponents’ back-yard from now on, where the crowd will make it even harder for him to settle and gain confidence in himself and where the pre-fight pressure might be even greater.
Question 2: Did Andrade expose Bute’s lack of world class stamina and toughness, chin and heart?
Bute’s stamina and toughness clearly failed him in the last round, but Andrade was always going to test Bute in this regard. Bute’s trainer, Stéphan Larouche, dismissed claims Bute had sparred too many rounds in preparation for the fight. Instead, he mysteriously said tests had revealed a physiological problem was most likely responsible for Bute’s failing stamina. What physiological problem, exactly? Bute was coming off a knee operation and a relatively long layoff. Could this explain Bute’s failing stamina, or should we simply accept a more likely explanation, namely that Bute simply lacks the stamina required to compete against someone like Andrade? Or, perhaps it was the relatively many flush punches that he took on the inside throughout the fight, especially in the last few rounds, that mostly led to him becoming easy prey for Andrade at the end. Even an iron chin can be worn down and cracked by enough punishment, after all… Once Bute started taking a few flush punches in a row on the inside, not only did he stop moving his feet, but he also stopped slipping punches and rolling under them, and Andrade started to land punches almost at will.
Bute has a good chin, though. After all, he took a few hard shots to the chin, face and head from Sakio Bika and one-punch-KO destroyer Alejandro Berrio without even looking shaky, never mind going down. However, Bute’s very good, fast foot-movement makes him a difficult target and he was not chin-checked much by either Bika or Berrio, that much is true. Andrade doesn’t have the power of Bika and certainly not that of Berrio, but, unlike those two, he was afforded a lot of flush chin and head shots on the inside whilst Bute used his hands to clinch ineffectively instead of trying to parry the shots. In the last round, Bute was too tired to even keep his hands up, whilst taking repeated flush punches from Andrade. In fact, it was as early as the tenth round that Andrade started to wear down Bute’s punch resistance. I wouldn’t take that as suggesting Bute doesn’t have a good chin, although, it’s clearly not iron. As to Bute’s heart, he proved he has a big heart by fighting hard to clear the floor and beat the count in the final seconds of the fight, after fighting bravely to stay on his feet for as long as possible in the first place. Many a titlist would not have had the heart to get up in those circumstances… that much is clear! Thus, whilst I’m not worried about Bute’s heart and chin, I am worried about his stamina and toughness, especially since I don’t believe he can improve in these departments – they will remain limiting factors, I think.
Question 3: Did Andrade expose Bute’s lack of world-class defence and inside-fighting skills?
Bute’s overreliance on reactions-based defence failed him once Andrade started to land a couple of punches in a row because Bute stopped reacting. Bute paid dearly for keeping his hands down, for overrelying on a shoulder-roll defence and for not even attempting to parry shots once he could no longer react to slip punches or roll under them. As to his inside-fighting skills, they were frankly nonexistent. To avoid fighting on the inside under overwhelming pressure from Andrade, Bute tried to clinch. He simply didn’t know how to do it competently, however, to everyone’s surprise. Andrade was afforded many free shots on the inside whilst Bute attempted to clinch time and time again. To make matters worse, the much stronger Andrade wore Bute’s stamina down in those failed clinches. On the occasions when Bute was either forced to fight Andrade on the inside or, even rarely, when he decided to go toe-to-toe on the inside of his own accord, he fared even worse than when he was taking flush head-shots in the clinches. Bute’s deficient defence remains my biggest concern for Bute. Whilst Bute has been working on moving his head more, with good results, his defence, on the whole, doesn’t seem to improve. My only hope is that with experience, Bute will learn to relax more and that will help him rely more on parrying shots when he has to.
Question 4: Was Bute’s strategy the right one, against Andrade?
Bute’s trainer, Stéphan Larouche, is generally criticised for turning Bute from an exciting finisher into a fighter who is too risk-averse and too weary of going in for the kill. This doesn’t take account of the fact that when Bute stepped up in class, he had to think about his defence as well as of his offence. Specifically, however, after this fight, he was heavily criticised for asking Bute to clinch, when clinching appeared to be the root of most of Bute’s problems in the first place. Critics argue that Larouche should have instead asked Bute to accept the fight on the inside more, and specifically, to go to the body more, on the inside. Bute, they argue, would have not used up so much energy and would have been much fresher late on, he would not have taken so many flush punches on the inside, and not least, he’d have hurt Andrade and stopped him in his tracks more. Such criticism is misguided, however, in my view. Whilst it is true that the strategy designed by Larouche failed Bute badly, it is not at all clear that the strategy envisaged by them, or any other strategy for that matter, would have even been viable, never mind more effective, against Andrade. Let us not forget that Andrade does best when fighting on the inside against an opponent who accepts the fight. Andrade’s fight against Yusaf Mack proved that. But Bute simply didn’t have the firepower and chin to get the better of Andrade on the inside, and if he had tried to set up punches to the body, he would have had to take more in return himself. Andrade’s long arms allow him to shield his body very effectively. His chin is iron and he knows how to turn with the punches to minimise their impact on his chin. He couldn’t be hurt to the body either. Bute, however, doesn’t deal so well with the punches coming his way. Before the fight, I thought that Bute’s superior speed, movement and tactical awareness would not be enough of an advantage if he was not also adaptive, fluid and uninhibited against Andrade. Ironically, it seemed that when Bute was most adaptive, fluid and uninhibited he fared worst against Andrade, even though he looked better.
Bute’s stamina would have failed him even earlier had he fought Andrade on the inside, instead of clinching. He would have been broken down even earlier by Andrade’s punches, if he had fought fire with fire. Bute wouldn’t have been able to survive more than ten rounds against Andrade by fighting him, in my view. Whilst laying most of the blame for a poor strategy with Larouche, critics also blame Bute for sticking to a clearly failing strategy rigidly for much too long. Again, I would argue they do so unfairly. Bute tried to fight Andrade and go to the body to keep him at bay but failed. Having realised that, he decided to clinch again, before attempting to fight Andrade yet again. Bute simply cannot be criticised for not trying everything against Andrade and for not being flexible and creative, just because whatever he tried simply wasn’t ultimately sufficient. Why didn’t Bute box more then, some critics ask? Instead of clinching or fighting, Bute should have moved and boxed more, simply scoring points and moving out of the way, they argue. Again, this is unrealistic. Bute’s footwork, movement, speed and stamina would have to be elite-level to allow him to simply box around Andrade for the entire fight, and whilst these are Bute’s best assets, they are no better than world class… Moreover, unlike Mikkel Kessler, Bute does not possess a power jab or a piston-like one-two that can be deployed often, repeatedly, for twelve rounds. In fact, on a couple of occasions, Bute even got out-jabbed by Andrade! Bute’s can flick his jab well when counterpunching, but because he keeps his right hand so low, he often fails to respond in time to use it effectively, and he is put under pressure by his opponent. Instead, Bute tends to use his jab more as a range-finder and to set up his straight left, than as an effective weapon in itself. Larouche asked Bute to rely more on his jab as early as the second round. Bute tried. It wasn’t enough. Bute simply couldn’t have hoped to box against Andrade for twelve rounds, (but try he did) – Larouche knew it; we all knew it as early as the first minute of the first round when Andrade trapped Bute against the ropes and tagged him with a good right.
Far from being a trainer that is keeping Bute back, Larouche is helping Bute get the best out of himself. Larouche and Bute have a special rapport. When Bute is demorialised or confused, Larouche manages to kick him back on track. He did it in the Bika fight and he did it in the Andrade fight. Larouche is the right man for Bute!
Question 5: Did Bute perform as well as could be expected against Andrade or not?
Many fans of Bute try to suggest that Bute underperformed on the night. Alas, Bute did not underperform. Bute tried everything: he boxed, clinched, fought, pushed…he even lifted Andrade’s leg. If anyone underperformed, it was Andrade. Bute offered no excuses or explanations for his performance; worryingly for his fans, he repeatedly made clear he thought he had performed well on the night. To this day, however, he thinks that what happened against Andrade in the last round was a mistake, an accident. But, if he performed well against Andrade, then Andrade exposed at least his lack of world-class stamina and toughness. Not least, if Bute performed well against Andrade and still barely survived getting knocked out, there can be no reason for him to be so confident that he would win a rematch, especially not, as he seems to expect, without a lot of drama (and luck)! Is Bute putting a brave face on it? He must be. Either that or he’s delusional… What happened against Andrade was far from an accident; in fact, it was inevitable; it’s time we all accepted that.
How about Andrade? Did he underperform? Andrade fought too “fairly” (despite the head buts, and elbows in the clinches) and reservedly against Bute, as I wrote at the beginning of the article. He wasn’t aggressive enough for most of the fight and he didn’t work intensively, as he usually does. It could also be argued that he underperformed because the referee did not allow him to work inside enough (because he protected Bute too much), whilst not penalising Bute for excessive clinching either. By the time Andrade started fighting his own fight, it was too late. Bute had enough to survive. Sure, Bute made Andrade look bad too, but that doesn’t mean Andrade didn’t underperform. He did!
Question 6: Who would be favourite to win a fairly refereed rematch?
A fair referee wouldn’t allow Bute to clinch excessively without penalising him, whilst stopping Andrade from working on the inside. He would either penalise Bute for clinching or he would allow Andrade to work his way out of a clinch and rough Bute up afterwards. As I’ve argued above, Bute did not underperform. He did not wrongly stick to a failing strategy. He did try everything and he barely survived the twelve rounds, giving his all. Imagine what would happen if Andrade started more aggressively, if he worked more, if he didn’t allow Bute to get away with clinching, but roughed him up in every single clinch! There is little that Bute could do to stop Andrade grinding him down and eventually stopping him, in my view, unless Andrade’s long-standing elbow injury doesn’t allow him to fight as well as expected, or, unless Bute performs better than ever, bringing new things into his game. As I see it, Bute’s only hope is to target Andrade’s elbows and arms and his eyes (like he did in the first fight), hoping that an injury or a cut would stop Andrade from fighting his fight. Can he do it? I’m far from certain he can. A healthy Andrade, performing well, with the right strategy, should beat a healthy Bute, performing well, with the right strategy, especially since Andrade’s defence, timing and footwork will have improved even more in the meantime, just like his fight against Vitali Tsypko suggests. How about Bute? In my view, he showed little improvement, if any, against Fulgencio Zuniga. I called the first Bute vs. Andrade encounter a 50/50 fight. I’d have to give Andrade a 55/45 edge in a rematch.
Question 7: Why aren’t Showtime interested in Bute vs. Andrade II?
Whilst it is true that there is more public interest and money in a Bute vs. Froch unification fight, it is not true that Showtime wouldn’t be interested in showing Bute vs. Andrade II next, whatever certain recent articles have suggested. It’s just that they would not be prepared to sponsor this fight with anything close to the same amount as Bute vs. Froch. Bute vs. Andrade II would not be aired on a Saturday on Showtime Championship Boxing, like Bute vs. Froch. It would be aired on a special Friday edition of ShoBox instead. Thus, Bute would be paid less by Showtime for taking on Andrade than for taking on Froch and he would get less exposure. In truth, the ball is very much in Bute’s court, assuming that Andrade wants the fight to happen next, which, unfortunately, is not clear. If Bute fights Andrade next, Showtime will certainly air it, but Bute would get less money and less exposure than he would have hoped, it seems.
Question 8: Will Bute take on the dangerous Andrade, unless he really has to?
The man his fans support and love so much would… How about the real Lucian Bute, though?
There is unfinished business between Bute and Andrade. Bute has certainly not proved that he is the better fighter. Andrade deserves a rematch. The fans have demanded it ever since the final bell of their encounter! Bute says he wants a rematch, but he didn’t give Andrade a rematch when he could and should have done. Instead, he fought a former sparring partner, a middleweight. Now, Andrade has once more become Bute’s mandatory challenger. Before unifying, Bute should put the Andrade matter to rest for good, that much most Bute fans agree on. But will he do it? Will Bute rematch the more dangerous Andrade instead of taking on the easier, financially more rewarding fight in Carl Froch? The bull is lethal on the second go… so they make sure he never gets a second go.
After Bute raised his arms in the air to celebrate the judges’ decision to award him the victory against Andrade, the latter came to him, embraced him and said: “You are my brother! I love you, man!” Is Bute worthy of such high-minded sentiments? Boxing is a dirty business and boxers, however talented, are all too often far from the noble, honest, fair men we’d like to imagine them to be. Is Bute, like Andrade, one of the few good guys? Well, are you, Lucian?
Read my preview of Bute vs. Andrade here: link
Read my proof that Bute won against Andrade fair and square and that the referee did not rob Andrade here: link