“While billed by some as a Superfight (!), many of the characteristics of such an event were missing from Pascal-Bute. Neither man, for example, had any momentum heading into the bout. Pascal’s last big fight was in May, 2011, when he was mind-melded and tamed in a rematch against Bernard “Ancient Alien” Hopkins; and Bute, pounded out in five rounds by Carl Froch in May, 2012, spent the last 14 months on the shelf with a hand injury. These were not two locomotives colliding so much as a couple of rusty Saturns jockeying for a parking space. Nor was there anything like a mandate for the fight outside of Quebec: Pascal-Bute took place in a division whose intrigue lay in other fights and other fighters (and that remains the case after Saturday night).”

Read The King of Laval: Jean Pascal W12 Lucian Bute on The Cruelest Sport.