LUCIAN BUTE vs LIBRADO ANDRADE

So near, so far. Librado Andrade’s disputed defeat against Lucian Bute in Montreal 13 months ago might have been the closest an underdog came to winning a world title without doing so since Yvon Durelle had Archie Moore almost out in the first round in that city back in the 1950s.

The dramatic closing moments of the Bute-Andrade 168-pound title fight have been widely debated and discussed. The prevailing view is that referee Marlon B. Wright should have stopped the fight instead of insisting that Andrade remain in the neutral corner from which the challenger had slightly strayed. Bute was as out on his feet as a fighter can be, his legs almost collapsing beneath him. The champion was seconds away from losing — but the referee’s ultra-strict interpretation of the neutral-corner rule gave Bute the vital seconds that he needed to survive until the final bell and receive the unanimous decision of the judges.

There was no doubt that Bute had scored more points, but Andrade was, to many, the moral winner.

On Saturday they meet again, in Quebec City, with TV coverage on HBO’s Boxing After Dark. Each man has boxed once since the first meeting. Bute retained his IBF super middleweight title with an impressive fourth-round blowout of Fulgencio Zuniga, while Andrade ground out a unanimous 12-round decision over Vitali Tsypko in an elimination match.

I’m not entirely convinced that the Bute camp wanted the rematch, but when Andrade became the mandatory challenger with his win over Tsypko it was either fight him again or vacate the title.

As before, Bute is the favourite. He mostly dominated the first meeting for the first 11 rounds. The oddsmakers figure that Bute will be smarter this time and won’t give Andrade the chance to catch him. Maybe they are right. Bute is much faster and classier than Andrade. There were long moments in the first meeting when the Montreal-domiciled Romanian was moving around the plodding Andrade and picking him off easily with quick punches from out of his southpaw stance. It wasn’t all Bute, though. Andrade had him hurt in the fifth round, but the Mexican-born slugger from southern California didn’t press his advantage. It was as if Andrade thought that he had plenty of time to catch Bute again, but before he knew it he was hearing the bell for the start of the last round. Andrade’s huge attack in the final three minutes had a tiring Bute staggering and finally going down. It took a major effort of will for Bute to drag himself to his feet and escape with his title in the closest of close calls.

I have interviewed both men for Boxing Monthly since that controversial fight. “In the fifth round I thought that I had him,” Andrade told me. “I felt that I could hurt him and I felt it was a matter of time, and I let him get away. I made the mistake of being too nice with him, too patient. I let it slip — because of my mistake, not because of him. In a way I was satisfied. I did what I went to do — and that was to finish him; I just didn’t do it where I was rewarded with the world championship.”

Bute, through an interpreter, admitted, perhaps with wry humour, that he “had some problems” in the last 30 seconds of the fight with Andrade. “It was a fight that I controlled totally up to that point but it was also a very physically exhausting fight,” he said. “I got in trouble because I was tired. I can’t wait to give him a rematch. I will give him a boxing lesson. I will not make the same mistakes again.”

This time, Andrade plans to put heavier pressure on Bute, and to do so earlier in the fight. Bute says that this time Andrade won’t be able to hit him often enough to slow him down.

The battle lines have been drawn. Andrade will be moving in, seeking to get close, to hit Bute when and where he can, willing to endure punishment for the chance to hurt the more skilful man. Bute will be moving, jabbing, circling the ring, hitting and not waiting for the reply, and when Andrade gets close he will seek to tie him up, the way he did in the first fight — referee Wright gave him a “last time” warning for holding in the 11th round.

Andrade has demonstrated amazing durability, but being able to take punches doesn’t win points. He has to try to move forward a bit more quickly this time, and he must let his hands go more than he did last time, even if he is missing a lot, because if he waits for the opportunity to land perfectly placed blows he will soon find himself in the same position as before — getting hit and getting outpointed.

In the first fight, I thought that the mental and physical strain of boxing a perfect fight, for round after round, caught up with Bute all of a sudden. He seemed perfectly OK in the 10th round, even getting credit for a knockdown although Andrade seemed to have been partly pushed over. In the 11th, though, Bute for the first time showed obvious signs of fatigue, even though he won the round on the Miami judge’s scorecard — and in the 12th he slowed almost to a standstill. A left hook had Bute sinking beneath the waves but the drowning man managed to keep his head above water — with a little help from the refereeing.

If Andrade can hurt Bute earlier in Saturday’s fight than he did in the first meeting, if he can increase his level of intensity and maintain an unrelenting advance, he can win. From talking to Andrade, it was obvious to me that he knows where he went wrong in the first fight. His Montreal trainer, Howard Grant, will want him to be going after Bute with urgency. “Don’t let him breathe” will be the order of the day. Bute will be ready, though, his senses tuned to high alert, his arms and legs ready for 12 rounds of moving, punching, clinching — and moving and punching again.

Bute should win again — he should be savvy enough to improve on his performance in the first bout and box his way to a clear points victory. The path will be strewn with danger, though, and while I am expecting a win for Bute I have the sense that Andrade will be in with a chance for the duration of the contest.