Quote Originally Posted by erics44 View Post
the way people are rating bute may well turn out to be justified

i personally think the fact that he is going into this fight as favourite shows just how inflated people judge his credentials

The company froch has mixed in in the last 3 or so years and only really been on the receiving end once (yeah yeah he lost to kessler but it was very tight), bute is coming off a win against brian magee in 8 or 9 rounds or whatever it was, imagine if froch fought magee now, 4 or 5 do you reckon? and bute is fighting in nottingham

IMO froch should be a huge favourite
Erics,

In terms of competition, there is no one that has been in better than Froch. Froch said it best himself, the question mark in this fight is Bute. Will he shine against the best fighter he's ever shared the ring with the same way he has against lesser foes?

It's a tough question to be sure. I wouldn't make too much about the competition level because other than Pascal/Taylor, Froch has arguably lost every time he stepped up. Dirrell lost their fight, as much as Froch won, and it was close regardless, Kessler was a close loss, but a loss, and against Ward, it wasn't close. Would Bute have come out of that gauntlet unscathed? Probably not, but Froch didn't either. Froch took a lot of experience from those fights that he could apply in this one, but he probably took some wear and tear, as well.

My thoughts are that Bute almost pitched a shut out against Glen Johnson and beat Sakio Bika with relative ease. I consider both of those guys to be top level competition. Not the very top, like Froch etc., but good competition. Bute did very well against them. I would argue that the indications are that Bute's talent level is appropriately rated.

The odds in this fight are tight. Bute is only a slight favorite. The experts polled by Ring Magazine picked Bute 12-10 and there were 7 split decisions, no knockouts.