LUCIAN BUTE TKO4 FULGENCIO ZUNIGA

Lucian Bute was very impressive when stopping Fulgencio Zuniga on ShoBox but I had expected a bit more from the Colombian challenger. Zuniga seemed to go down almost theatrically from Bute’s left to the body in the fourth and he made no attempt to fight back after taking the rather slow eight count from referee Lindsay Page Jr.

Bute did well to get Zuniga out of the fight as quickly as he did, but the challenger seemed mentally beaten from the start in this IBF 168-pound title bout. Normally, Zuniga can be depended upon to put up a spirited effort but in last Friday’s mismatch he was boxing like a man who knew he had no chance of winning.

I give Bute full credit, though, for never letting Zuniga get into the fight. The Montreal-based Romanian showed more head movement than I remember seeing from him in the past, and he was punching hard with the left hand from his southpaw stance. He looked like a huge super middleweight in this fight, too, much bigger than Zuniga, who started his career as a junior middleweight.

The fight was just what Bute needed after last October’s harrowing final round against Librado Andrade. Yes, I thought that Zuniga was disappointing, but Bute imposed his authority from the start and, as Steve Farhood noted in the Showtime commentary, he did something to Zuniga that no one else had been able to do by blowing him away easily in four rounds. In short, Bute did what had to be done and in that respect no one could have asked for more.