Jean Pascal Beats Lucian Bute In Battle Of Montreal
by Gautham Nagesh
For ten rounds on Saturday night, Montreal fans watched their hero come undone.
The long-awaited battle of local light heavyweight contenders Jean Pascal and Lucian Bute had been a farce. Pascal spent ten rounds patiently disabusing the 20,000 fans in attendance of any notion that Bute was worthy of their admiration. The Romanian-Canadian looked tentative, and even frightened at times. Bute’s confidence has been long gone since Carl Froch took his heart that May evening in Nottingham, and not even the friendly confines of the Bell Centre could bring it back.
Once, Bute’s entrance to U2’s “Where The Streets Have No Name” had been one of the sport’s great spectacles, even for those of us that revile Bono and Co. Last night it sounded like a requiem. For ten rounds, Bute looked like a man with no business in the prize fighting ring. There is nowhere to hide inside the ropes, and nothing like boxing to expose what exactly a man has inside. For ten rounds last night on HBO, Lucian Bute looked like beaten man. But the fight was scheduled for 12.[[MORE]][[MORE]]
Pounded, played with, and mocked for ten rounds, Bute somehow woke up in the championship rounds and fought. Perhaps he searched his soul while on his stool, and realized how poorly he had performed on this night. Possibly he realized that there are worse things in life than being knocked out, like never daring to be great. More likely, he is just a fighter, and by some measures a champion, and the part of him that fights wouldn’t have been able to live with such a shameful performance to that point.
Whatever the reason, Bute took advantage of Pascal’s careless attempts at playing possum, and responded by unloading on him with right hooks and left hands. That he never committed to the left uppercut is unfortunate, because Bute appeared to have Pascal in real trouble in the 12th, and his best punch might have sealed the deal. It is now academic. As HBO’s Max Kellerman correctly proclaimed, Bute might have saved his career with his last-ditch effort. Until then, I had no interest in ever seeing him fight again.
A brutal loss like the one Bute suffered against Froch would shake the core of any fighter. It’s not unusual for the first defeat to shatter a fighter’s confidence. There are many examples of champions who were never the same once they learned how to lose. Bute looked like the latest, but something in him was not content to be written off just yet. Time will tell whether the self-belief he showed in the final rounds can translate to the opening rounds of a meaningful fight.
Pascal is a maddening opponent, one that fights just enough to keep things interesting, but never fully commits. His gifts are considerable, yet he is tantalizing deficient, just enough to engender hope in opponents. He started slowly, crouching low and jabbing from the outside, but he was soon dashing in with lead right hands, then bouncing away in his awkward, herky-jerky style. Pascal would stay silent early in the round, then close with one or two extended flurries featuring plenty of short, sloppy shots to Bute’s sides and the back of his head.
Bute, on the other hand, barely landed anything at all. He occasionally timed a left hand counter when Pascal dove in, but it was never followed by a right hook, or anything else. He seemed afraid to connect his punches, let he leave himself open for a flush shot from his brawny opponent. Bute’s body language showed he didn’t trust his chin, even as he stood up to a number of solid shots from Pascal.
The patter continued in the middle rounds, with Pascal growing more confident and reckless with every round. He began deploying unusual combinations, and trying to bait Bute into attacking enough to make himself vulnerable. Bute wouldn’t comply. He stuck to the middle of the ring, where he was able to stay at distance and avoid engaging. When Pascal would charge late in the rounds, Bute looked consistently overwhelmed.
Occasionally Pascal would trap Bute along the ropes; those were the moments when Pascal looked in danger of stopping the fight. Bute does not handle pressure well, and seemed incapable of countering between his opponent’s blows. Hopefully if he gets his confidence back, that composure will return as well. Without it, he’s a sitting duck for any aggressive fighter.
Pascal has no major weaknesses, but his style seems created to take advantage of an off-day by his opponent. He rarely takes the initiative to create sustained action or set his opponent up for a kill-shot later on. He would be a natural opponent for light heavyweight champ Adonis Stevenson, in all likelihood at the same venue some time this spring. It’s a good fight, and should probably happen, but it doesn’t set one’s pulse racing.
Bute is no longer ranked at any weight by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and he probably needs at least one good win to get back on the map. I hope he gets it, because it would be a shame for him to go out like this. Still, if this is the last we see of him, he can say he went out like a fighter and a champion, standing up and fighting back. That means a lot, especially around here.
The telecast opened with Cuban-Irish heavyweight Mike Perez and former Cameroonian Olympian Carlos Takam fighting to a majority draw over ten rounds. Perez started decently, but the larger Takam appeared to take control once the fight moved inside. Takam probably deserved the nod, but Perez has acquired an aura of vulgar marketability since seriously injuring Magomed Abdusalamov at Madison Square Garden in November.
Such enthusiasts were probably disappointed by Perez’s listless showing, which his camp blamed in part on the 8th-round head butt that resulted in a nasty cut on his right eyebrow. Whatever the reason, a rematch is probably warranted, though an audience might be tough to find. It would hard to justify spending more TV airwaves on either man in the near future, even in a division as talent-poor as the heavyweights.