Lucian Bute-Kelly Pavlik: A Fight That Makes Sense for Everyone

Just a few weeks away from Halloween, it was only appropriate that Lucian Bute looked like a monster last Friday at Montreal’s Bell Centre.

Though he started cautiously against Jesse Brinkley, the IBF super middleweight title holder was rarely threatened through the first few rounds, dictating the action and taking few flush shots other than jabs. Once he found the range with his body shots and uppercuts, Bute took total control, dropping Brinkley several times en route to a ninth-round KO.

During and after the fight, the ESPN announcer team speculated about the possibility of Bute facing former middleweight champ Kelly Pavlik in 2011. It’s a fight that has been mentioned in the past without becoming a reality, but the timing for it seems better than ever with Pavlik using his Nov. 13 fight against Bryan Vera to test the waters for a move to 168 pounds.

Would Pavlik be deserving of a title shot so soon after jumping to super middleweight? That depends on whom you ask.

BoxRec.com already has The Ghost ranked fifth in his supposed new division, ahead of the likes of Arthur Abraham and Carl Froch. He’s fought just twice above middleweight in recent years, with decidedly mixed results—a decision victory in his February 2008 rematch with Jermain Taylor and a disheartening loss to Bernard Hopkins eight months later.

But Pavlik insists that his career stumbles are behind him, and that he will show off his old form next month. A convincing knockout would help verify his claims, though few boxing pundits consider Vera much of a threat.

The same certainly couldn’t be said for Bute, whose blend of skill and power has helped him rack up a 27-0 record. His movement would also pose problems for Pavlik even if he’s not quite as mobile as former conquerors Hopkins and Sergio Martinez.

Still, the risk would be worth it for Pavlik, who desperately needs a signature victory to reclaim his prior mojo. Beating a fighter as hot and highly regarded as Bute, likely as a significant underdog, would accomplish that quite nicely.

Bute would benefit from the name recognition Pavlik brings to the table, something almost all of his previous opponents have lacked. And his alternatives for a big fight are few, with most of the top names at 168 pounds either tied up with the Super Six World Boxing Classic (Froch, Abraham and Andre Ward) or out injured (Andre Dirrell and Mikkel Kessler).

A Pavlik fight would also offer Bute a real opportunity to step away from the cozy surroundings of Montreal and silence the critics who want to see him take his act on the road.

Staging the fight on the East Coast (say, in either Atlantic City or New York) should work for both sides, since Pavlik’s followers have already shown the willingness to journey East from Ohio, and Bute’s Canadian fans would still have a relatively reasonable travel distance.

It’s a fight that could be sold to HBO as a counter to the remainder of the Super Six without too much trouble. It’s also a matchup of two men with knockout percentages of over 80 percent, so even people with no rooting interest should dig it.

In short, it’s the kind of fight that makes sense for everyone involved. That doesn’t ensure that it will get made—this is boxing, after all—but don’t be shocked if it does.