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Showtime ShoBox Recap

October 24, 2008

Bell Centre-Montreal, Quebec

Montreal has the best boxing crowds in either the United States or Canada. This event is officially a sellout with an attendance of 16,266.

IBF Super Middleweight (168 pounds) 12-Round Championship Match:

Lucian Bute (22-0, 18 KO's, 168 pounds) (c) vs. Librado Andrade (27-1, 21 KO's, 167.8 pounds)

Bute wonthis title from Alejandro Berrio via technical knockout at 1:27 of round 11 on October 19, 2007 in the Bell Centre. The champion is attempting to make his second defense of this title.

The native of Romania who now resides in Montreal had a strong amateur boxing career that was highlighted by winninga bronze medal at the 1999 World Amateur Championships.

The champion's last match was a technical knockout victory at 1:08 of round 10 over William Joppy on February 29, 2008 in the Bell Centre.Bute controlled Joppy the entire match, winning every round on all of the judges scorecards prior to the stoppage. Tonight's match will be Bute's tenth straight match at the Bell Centre.

Bute is The Ring's number 3 contender at 168 pounds to their vacant championship in the weight class. (Joe Calzaghe recently vacated The Ring Championship at 168 pounds.)

Andrade has an unorthodox defensive styles that makes it difficult for him to win matches via decision. He does not like to block punches with his arms and gloves. Andrade says blocking the punches makes his arms go numb. Therefore, he chooses to in effect block the punches with his face. Andrade will let his opponents deliver clean shots to his head and try to roll with the punches so that they do no damage. This may be an effective defensive technique. However, to the official scorers it looks like Andrade is being hit in the head very hard the entire round. Therefore,Andrade will lose many rounds where he took no damage. Using that defensive technique, Mikkel Kessler dealt what appeared to be a scary life altering beating on Andrade winning the their match 120-108 on all of the official judges' scorecards. However, at the end of the night Andrade did not have a mark on his face and apparently left the match with no significant damage. The original recap of that match can be found here: http://www.number1contender.net/the-latest/2008/10/24/preview-of-lucian-bute-vs-librado-andrade.html

The challenger's last match was a technical knockout victory at 2:53 of round 8 over Robert Steiglitz on March 22, 2008 at the Morongo Resort, Casino & Spa in Cabazon, California. Andrade was dominant in defeating the German that night and the victory made the resident of La Habra, California the mandatory challenger for this belt. The original recap of that match can be found here: http://www.number1contender.net/the-latest/2008/10/24/recap-of-librado-andrade-vs-robert-steiglitz.html

Andrade is The Ring's number 4 contender at 168 pounds.

At 28-years-old, Bute is 2 years younger then the 30 year old Andrade. Bute has the height advantage standing 6' 2.5" tall, while Andrade stands 6' 2" tall. The champion has the reach advantage with a 74" wingspan compared to a 73" wingspan of the challenger. Neither boxers' unofficial weight approaching match time is available. However, the IBF requires boxers to weigh-in within 10 pounds of their official weigh-in weights on the day of the match. Therefore, both boxers should be about the same size in the ring.Bute will employ the southpaw stance, while Andrade will box out ofthe orthodox stance.

The unified rules of boxing are in effect for this match. The official judges keeping score of this match are from Florida, Quebec and England. The referee is Marlon B. Wright.

The sustained crowd noise for Bute's entrance is so loud the Showtime announcers have to yellinto their headsets to be heard. They eventually made the decision to layout during the ring walk and introduction, rather then lose their voices with possibly an hour left in the show. The Showtime announcers point out with this crowd behind him and Andrade's style there is virtually no chance the American is leaving this arena with a decision victory.

Andrade blocks more punches then he usually does in round 1. However,Andrade still blocked a lot of Bute's power puncheswith his face, allowing the hometown boxer to take round 1, 10-9. Showing superior movement, Bute wins round 2, 10-9. Bute leads on my scorecard after 2 rounds, 20-18.

After round 2, Showtime ran an a video package ad for next week's event featuring Vic Darchinyan vs. Cristian Mijares to unify their titles at 115 pounds. Showtime's play-by-play man for this event, Nick Charles, coming out of the video package made about the greatest unintentionally funny transition, ever. They returned to live action with one of the cameramen trying for an upskirt shot of one of the dancers and Charles said, "Talk about beautiful style match-ups." Charles then went on to talk about Darchinyan vs. Mijares. Therefore, it does not appear Charles was working the Mauro Ranallo angle. Nonetheless it was great comedy.

Bute seems to land straight left hands at will to take round 3, 10-9. Round 4 is Andrade's best of the night, but Bute stillwins it, 10-9. To open round 5, Bute has a mark under his right eye. Round 5 is full of rough house tactics and a bit of free style wrestling when Bute had one of Andrade's legs up in the air for a single leg takedown. This is the style Andrade needs to win. The American takes round 5, 10-9. With 2:28 to go in round 6, the referee calls time to have some spilled water in Bute's corner wiped upto prevent an accident.After a short pause the action is resumed.Round 6 is contested on the outside, therefore Bute wins it easily, 10-9. After 6 rounds, Bute leads on my scorecard, 59-55. Both Farhood and Charles have Bute ahead on their scorecards after 6 rounds, 59-55.

Bute wins round 7, 10-9. The crowd was so loud for a Bute combination at the end of round 7, that the bell was barely audible. This has been the loudest crowd throughout an event all year. The champion wins round 8 big, 10-9. With 22 seconds to go in round 9, the referee calls time to admonish Andrade for headbutting. After a5 second pause, where the clock may not have been stopped, the action is resumed. Bute wins round 9, 10-9. After 9 rounds, the champion leads on my scorecard, 89-82.

A punch from Bute causes blood to start flowing from Andrade's nose with over 2:00 to go in round 10. With 1:50 to go in round 10, Andrade goes down to the mat. It appeared to be a slip, but the referee is ruling it a knockdown. That is only the second time Andrade has been knocked down as a pro. Unhurt, Andrade successfully answers the referee's count to continue with 1:38 to go in the round. With 46 seconds to go in round 10, the referee calls time to admonish Andrade for not listening to the referee's instructions after the boxer kept throwingpunches when he was ordered to break. This results in about a 5 second delay before the action is resumed. Bute wins round 10, 10-8. Andrade knows he needs a knockout at this point. Replays show that Andrade clearly went down from getting his feet tangled up with Bute's, not a punch. The referee blew the call. That should not have been ruled a knockdown. However, Andrade would still have been so behind in the match at this point that he would need a knockout to win. That makes the call irrelevant. The blown call may actually help Andrade, because it may make him realize that he must score a knockoutto win.Andrade responded to a brutal combination from Bute by using a belly to belly throw to send the champion flying into the padded turnbuckle.This causesthe referee to call time with 1:17 to go in round 11 to warn Andrade for a number of things. After the few second pause, the action is resumed. Towards the end of round 11, Bute received his final warning from the referee for holding. The referee told Bute that the next holding infraction will cost the champion a meaningless point. Bute takes round 11, 10-9. With less then5 seconds to go in the match, a completely spent and out of it Bute goes to his knees in the corner following a right-left combination from Andrade. This is the first time Bute has been to the canvas as a pro. Bute's title cannot be saved by the bell. The crowd is on their feet cheering for the hometown champion to beat the count. Bute makes his feet, but is wobbly and his eyes appear completely vacant. However, the referee was yelling at Andrade to go to the neutral corner and was not counting. The referee can still stop the match, because Bute is obviously in no shape to continue even though he did manage to make his feet. The referee rules Bute is fit to continue, even though the champion is leaning against the corner and has a vacant look on his face. The referee never made Bute walk to him. The champion probably would have failed that test. Immediately after the referee ruled Bute was fit to continue, the bell sounded to end the match. There was no chance for the action to resume and Bute had never left his post leaning against the corner. Andrade just experienced a Montreal screw job. He did knock out the champion, but will not be leaving with the title belt. Andrade was dominating round 12 before the knockdown to the point it would have been a borderline 10-8 round anyway. The challengerwins an unsatisfying round 12, 10-8. My unofficial scorecard has Andrade winning by knockout at 2:59 of round 12. However, based on the refereeingBute wins on my scorecard,117-109. Following the bell, Andrade's trainer went after the referee and shoved him several times before he was restrained.

The official decision is that the judges have scored the match: 117-109, 115-111, 115-110, all for the winner by unanimous decision, still undefeated, and still the IBF Super Middleweight Champion of the World, Lucian "Le Tombeur" Bute. The win moves Bute to 23-0 with 18 of those wins coming by way of knockout.

Andrade in his post match interview said that he felt he was cheated. The American said if he had to lose, this was the way he would like to lose. Andrade said he knew he was not going to win a decision, before the match and knew he needed a knockout to win. He said he would like a rematch, but doubts it will happen. Andrade knows Bute will not want to do this match, again. Therefore, Andrade will take whatever match his peoplecan get for him next. The judges' scoring did not upset him, because he never expected to win a decision. His point is that he scored a knockout and everyone saw what happened so it does not matter. Andrade was very classy in this interview.

A likely concussed Bute said in his post match interviewthat Andrade took advantage of the fact he had gotten tired. Bute said Andrade won round 12 and possibly 1 more round, but that he (Bute) won the match. The champion was unwilling todiscuss the knockdown. This is probably in part due to the fact hedoes not remember it.Bute staggered going back to his corner following the final belland his eyes were vacant forseveralminutes following theend of the match. The champion said he was unaware of the fact that the ending of this match was controversial. Considering some of the fans in the building were half-booingthe finish, Bute clearly has no memory of what happened. As suspected,Bute was out on his feet. Bute said he will face anyone next including Andrade. Bute's head is still foggy. Therefore, this interview does not count.

Now Farhood is going to interview the referee, who is from Montreal. Wright said Andrade left the neutral corner and that is why he stopped his count. The referee said if he had not stopped the count, Bute would have been stopped via technical knockout.The thing is that Andrade was only about 4 feet out of the neutral corner and Bute was already standing when the referee halted his count. That means the referee used a very broad definition to require Andrade to stay in the neutral. Then since, Bute had not made a miraculous recovery in that 10 seconds, essentially decided not to stop the match out of spite. Very rarely do you have referee's explain quite so clearly how they screwed someone out of a title. That is among the worst refereeing decisions of the last few years. The fact Wright explained it the way he did only makes the call more of an abomination.Wright had clearly decided that he was not going to let Andrade win, which is an unconscionable thing for a referee to do. Add that to the completely blown knockdown call in round 10 that went against Andrade and this almost appears to be a series of actions by a rogue official who at some point determined Andrade was doing the job tonight, regardless of what happened in the match.

A victory here was designed to springboard Bute into a match with Kessler to determine a new Ring Champion at 168 pounds. However, this victory was disastrous. After the final bell sounded Bute's corner people were consoling each other like friends coming out of the latest Indiana Jones movie. They knew Bute was clearly hurt badly by this victory. The public perception is that he lost. Had Bute dominated round 12 the only thing that would have delayed a match with Kessler would have been an agreement over where to host the match. Instead, Bute was knocked out by a boxer Kessler dominated. The only real interest in Kessler-Bute now is in how fast the Dane would knockout Bute. Bute is going to have no interest in a rematch with Andrade.However, it appears that following the controversial finish the IBF is going to mandate a rematch.

There is a saying in boxing that when you challenge a guy in his hometown you need to score a knockout to earn a draw. Andrade proved that statement is not true.He went to Bute's adopted hometown of Montreal, scored a knockout, and came away witha loss. Andrade's performance tonight is the text book case of getting over more in a loss then he would have with a win. He came off as he good guy who won, but got screwed. Had he won the titleit would have been a great story, but he would have been probably been rematched with Kessler in his next match. That meantAndrade would have been a guy that was a good story for 1 night, but was then promptly proved to be a second tier boxer when Kessler dominated him, again.It appears Andrade will now get a mandatory rematch with Bute. The crowds in Montreal are the best in the United States and Canada, but it would be best for Andrade if this match ends up on the undercard of a PPV in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This event is a recommended watch. The crowds make all Montreal events good. The finish of the main event is one thatshould have viewers talking, but not in a good way. However, it was a dramatic end to what had been a good show.