Written by Tim Starks | 24 October 2008

Because I erroneously gave the wrong date in an earlier post for tonight's Lucian Bute-Librado Andrade bout, I feel compelled to rectify my error by strongly suggesting you tune in to Showtime tonight, not tomorrow evening. It won't be there if you wait until tomorrow.

It helps that the fight could be sensational. Bute and Andrade have produced their share of fireworks separately, Bute with big knockouts and Andrade with all-out war of attrition-style slugfests. What also helps is that it will be one piece of some vital business to be taken care of at super middleweight (168 lbs.) post-Joe Calzaghe, since Calzaghe unified some alphabet belts, won the linear championship Ring belt and then departed for light heavyweight (175 lbs.), leaving the question of "Who's the boss?" unsettled.
Starting with tonight over the next couple months, four of Ring's top 10 super middleweights will have it out with one another, and another top 10 super middle will be in action against a guy who is top-10 worthy. Bute is #3, Andrade #4. Jermain Taylor (#10) and Jeff Lacy (#5) are up next, on Nov. 15, and then Carl Froch (#6) and Jean Pascal fight for a vacant title belt on the not-so-intelligently-scheduled Dec. 6, the same night as the biggest fight of the year, Oscar De La Hoya-Manny Pacquiao (147 lbs). Taylor-Lacy will be on TV, but not Froch-Pascal.

Rounding out the rest of the top 10, Mikkel Kessler (#1) is back in business tomorrow night defending some bullshit belt or the other and basically just continually pissing all over whatever goodwill he earned with his respectable showing in a loss to Calzaghe by fighting another borderline nobody. Anthony Mundine (#2) is flirting with moving down to 160 pounds. Allan Green (#7) gets mentioned for big fights but has more or less been mismanaging his career. Sakio Bika (#8) fights fellow "Contender" TV show alum Peter Manfredo on Versus Nov. 13. And Dennis Inkin (#9) just won himself a vacant alphabet title.

It's not the most inspiring bunch right now, and only a couple of them -- Kessler and Taylor -- would even warrant consideration among the top 20 pound-for-pound fighters on the planet. But there are some intriguing fighters on that list and a few others besides who spice things up -- potential contenders Edison Miranda, Andre Ward, the Dirrell brothers and prospect Daniel Jacobs -- and whoever comes out on top might do themselves some real favors toward breaking through into the elite in the ballpark of 160-175 pounds, where some of the biggest names and/or pound-for-pound best -- Joe Calzaghe, Bernard Hopkins, Roy Jones, Chad Dawson, Antonio Tarver, Glen Johnson, Kelly Pavlik, Arthur Abraham, Winky Wright and sometimes Paul Williams -- are tossing the leather gloves these days.

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