By Luke Furman
Jean Pascal (29-2-1, 17KOs) feels Lucian Bute (31-2, 24KOs) has not fully regained his confidence after the five round beating at the hands of Carl Froch in May of 2012. Bute returned once that November, winning a twelve round decision over Denis Grachev. There were shakey moments in the Grachev fight and then Bute was inactive for over a year until he met Pascal on Saturday night at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada.
Bute was very cautious and barely threw punches for eleven rounds. In the twelfth, sensing that Pascal's stamina was fading, Bute threw nearly 100 punches. Not nearly enough, as Pascal won the fight with scores of 116-112, 118-110, 117-111.
"His confidence was not there 100%. The psychological [aspect] is a lot [to take in] before a fight, so I've seen a lot of weaknesses in Lucian Bute. After the weigh-in, I saw that he was still trying to convince himself, [that he could win], and it 24 hours before the fight," Pascal said.
Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org.
