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Lucian Bute will not be defending his belt in June after all. There was a lot of talk, but Interbox wasn't able to find a good enough opponent who was willing to come to Quebec City for what they could afford. Unless his injury doesn't heal up, his next fight will be with Librado Andrade. Carl Froch is probably barking up the wrong tree at the moment, but it's encouraging that the two sides are talking.
- According to Dan Rafael, Edwin Valero won't be fighting on the next Latin Fury card. Bob Arum couldn't offer Valero a big enough money fight, so he's refusing to fight at all. Can't say I blame Valero. He left Japan and signed with Top Rank to build a name and make some real money. He was probably making more than what Arum was offering fighting tomato cans in Tokyo. Also, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. may face Jason LeHoullier on that card. LeHoullier is another limited slugger. He was scratched from the Froch-Taylor undercard when opponent Vernon Forrest got hurt.
- Also per Rafael, Afolabi-Ross is off because Afolabi is having visa issues, but Troy Ross will fight on the Diaconu-Pascal undercard. Also, his camp has already opened talks with Krzystof Wlodarczyk for a Versus-televised title fight in August if the Pole can beat Giacobbe Fragomeni this weekend.
- Universum is getting pressure from the German TV networks to make better fights (their contract is up next year), so they're pitting some of their top prospects against each other. Scheduled for June 6, Denis Boytsov will face Taras Bidenko. It's a big step up for Boystov, who's young and green, but has some good tools to work with. Bidenko's two losses were against Valuev (in his fourth pro fight) and Vladimir Virchis (where he was KOed in the 12th in a come-from-behind loss), and he's run off a winning streak against decent competition. A win for either one pushes them into legitimate contender status.
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