Lucian Bute vs. Eleider Alvarez on Fri. in WBC title eliminator

boxingnews24.com

By Jim Dower: WBC Silver light heavyweight champion Eleider Alvarez (21-0, 10 KOs) will be in action this Friday night on February 24 to face former IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (32-3-1, 25 KOs) in a World Boxing Council 175 lb. title eliminator bout at the Videoron Centre in Quebec, Canada. The Bute-Alvarez fight will be televised on pay-per-view in the U.S on Integrated Sports Medium. The cost is $29.95.

On paper, the Bute vs. Alvarez fight is an evenly matched affair that could do either way. Bute, 36, has turned his career around recently since suffering losses to Carl Froch, Jean Pascal and James DeGale, although he hasn’t won a fight since August 2015.

That was Bute’s last win in beating Andrea Di Luisa. Never the less, Bute looked very good in his last two fights against DeGale and Badou Jack. The latter fight was scored a 12 round draw on April 30 last year in Washington, DC. Bute fought well enough to win, but the judges felt that he didn’t do quite enough to get the ‘W’ out of the fight. The boxing fans were split down the middle with some of them thinking that Jack won while others feeling that Bute had done enough.

The winner of the Bute vs. Alvarez fight will be the #1 mandatory challenger to WBC champion Adonis Stevenson (28-1, 23 KOs). Unless the southpaw 39-year-old Stevenson gets old all of a sudden, he would have to be heavily favored to beat whoever emerges victorious in the Bute-Alvarez fight on Friday night. Stevenson still looks to be fighting at a high level despite his advancing age.

How much longer he’ll be able to do that is the important question. Every fighter gets older sooner or later unless they quit boxing before they get to that point. Stevenson appears to be the type that will stay on until he has nothing left.

The 32-year-old Eleider Alvarez has not looked particularly good in his recent fights Norbert Dabrowski, Robert Berridge, Isaac Chilemba and Isidro Ranoni Prieto. #1 WBC Alvarez is winning all of his fights, but he’s not shining the way he should be for him to be considered as someone that would have a chance at beating Adonis Stevenson inside the ring.

It’s still not to that point yet. Alvarez has to prove that he has the talent to beat the #7 WBC Bute, who was almost unbeatable during the prime of his career from 2003 to 2011. Bute has been much less effective since 2012.

Bute might not be the same fighter that he once was during his best years in boxing, but he’s still a very good puncher and dangerous with his body punching. Alvarez has not fought anyone with the power or the skills that Bute possesses. That’s the whole problem that Alvarez has in this fight. He doesn’t have the prior experience in facing anyone with the combination of power, speed and boxing ability that Bute has going for him.

What makes Bute even tougher is he’s a southpaw, and Alvarez hasn’t been fighting a lot of those guys. The southpaws that Alvarez has fought haven’t had the power or the skills that Bute possesses.