Lucian Bute Stops Librado Andrade with Fourth Round Knockout

Romanian-born left-hander, Lucian Bute, dropped Librado Andrade with a short left hand early in the fourth round, and finished him with a hard, left to the challenger's rib cage from which Andrade did not rise on the way to a fourth-round knockout in defense of his IBF, super middleweight (168 pounds) title on Saturday night before a screaming partisan, sold out crowd at Pepsi Coliseum in Quebec City.

Referee Benjy Estevez stood over Andrade, who was on all fours and counted him out at 2:57 of the round.

In the HBO-televised bout, Bute raised his record to 25-0 with his 20th knockout, dropping Andrade to 28-3 with 21 knockouts.

A Montreal resident, Bute scored his fourth knockout in his last five fights.

Bute also went a long way toward erasing the memory of the two fighters' first bout 13 months ago, when Andrade had Bute literally out on his feet in the 12th round, evening knocking down the champion with just over 10 seconds left.

Still, Bute appeared to escape with a victory thanks, primarily, to a controversial, long-count by referee Marlon Wright.

Bute said that it wasn't enough to have survived the near, final-round knockout before what was then a partisan crowd of more than 70,000 at Bell Centre in Montreal.

"I want to thank HBO for showing my fight, " said Bute, who dropped Andrade for the second and third times in his career,and stopped him for the first time.

"I respected the game plan. We went down to Florida and we trained hard," said Bute. "We had tremendous sparring partners, and tonight was my night. Everything went as planned."

Andrade's other loss was against Denmark's Mikkel Kessler by decision.

"Yes I did [think he could score a knockout.] That's what I trained for. That was the game plan, and everything went as planned," said Bute. "I was confident from the first ring of the bell. My trainer said that 'You've got to use your jab effectively, and if you do so, he will go down.'"

Bute had easily won the first four rounds, boxing from a distance, setting up Andrade with right jabs, throwing right-left combinations, and firing lead left hands and left hooks that were punctuated by right hands.

In the fourth round, Bute took two early uppercuts from Andrade, who was told between rounds by his corner to step up the pace and to throw more punches.

But with about a minute and 15 seconds left in the fourth, Andrade was caught and jolted along the ropes with a short, left cross.

The punch caused the challenger to fall face-forward even as he grabbed onto the champion's body and legs in a failed attempt to slow his downward momentum.

Andrade was up as Estevez reached the count of seven, but the end would come soon. That's when Bute's left to the body -- with 18 seconds left in the round -- dropped Andrade for good.

Estevez counted him out from there.

Until the 12th round of their last fight, Bute appeared to have been dominant throughout winning in the end, 117-109, on the card of Alex Levin, 115-111, on that of Benoit Roussel, and, 115-110, on that of Mickey Vann.

Bute said that he sought inspiration from former heavyweight champion, Lennox Lewis, a ringside commentator for last night's bout who rebounded from a knockout loss to Hasim Rahman to regain his crown by stoppage seven months later.

"Lennox Lewis did it against Rahman, and we knew that we could do the same thing," Bute said. "We did what we had to do. I feel exactly like Lennox did at the time. I haven't felt this good in two years. What people saw tonight was the real Lucian Bute."

"I said all along that the first fight with Andrade was an accident at the end of the fight."