By Ryan Burton
Lucian Bute is looking to stay in the loaded super middleweight division for a couple more years. The IBF champ told BoxingScene.com's official audio show, The Boxing Lab, that he would like to clean out the division before thinking of moving up in weight.
"I want to stay at 168 as long as possible," stated Bute. "I want to clean up my division first."
Bute faces Glen Johnson on November 5th and then hopes to face the winner of the Super Six finals between Andre Ward and Carl Froch early next year. He also has been in negotiations to face Kelly Pavlik and Mikkel Kessler so he has many options in the super middleweight division for the foreseeable future. He did however acknowledge that at some point a move to light heavyweight is inevitable. "I am 31 years old. As you get older you usually move up in weight. Maybe in a couple years I will go up to light heavyweight," explained Bute.
Bute also touched on his upcoming fight versus Glen Johnson. The Montreal, Canada based fighter of Romanian descent spoke highly of Johnson who is known as a gentleman both inside and outside of the ring. Johnson has only been stopped once and that was when he faced Bernard Hopkins in 1997. I asked Bute if he would try to be the first fighter to knockout Johnson in almost 15 years.
"I won't look for a knockout but yes of course I would want to do it. I will take it one round at a time and once I get my rhythm set, the knockout might come. I would love to be the first guy since Hopkins to do it," replied Bute.
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