Lucian Bute and the Canadian History Lesson
By Kevin Nelson
In order to understand the great deal of popularity Lucian Bute has with Quebecers. Look no further than his fight with Jesse Brinkley.
The attendance was 14,000 for a fight that everyone anticipated being a Bute beat down of a journeyman. Bute has endeared himself to fight fans in the province of Quebec with his awesome display of knockouts and charismatic personality. As well as all of those accolades he is a champion in a province full of sports fans that are demanding.
The people expect great performances and anything less is thought of as a disappointment. But in order to understand how a fighter that immigrated to Quebec can be more popular than local francophone fighters we must first realize how far we have come as a province.
Through the late 80s and throughout most of the 1990s the boxing scene in the province of Quebec was thought of as a dormant scene. There was a point in time where we were lucky to get a couple of fights a year.
At this particular point in the late 1990s Hans Karl Muelhegg a millionaire German promoter started a promotion called “Interbox.”
In this promotion were a stable of fighters from the local fight scene, such as Davey Hilton, Stephane Ouellett, Dale Brown, Eric Lucas and Trevor Berbick. Interbox became quite successful promoting fighters with the help of Yvon Michel. There was one fighter that was the most popular of that group. He had captured the imagination and hearts and minds of the francophone population.
Fans and journalists alike were enamored with him. With his poetic quotes and fascination with odd topics and even in one instance, being the number one ranked challenger only to disappear for a year working in construction, Ouellett was once said to be the “next Sugar Ray Leonard” in this province. Yes, the journalists’ love affair of him was delusional in thinking he can even carry Sugar Ray’s jockstrap.
On the opposite side of him was an Anglophone fighter named “Davey Hilton” who exhibited a great left hook but had a number of problems with drugs, and alcohol. He was the kind of fighter who had talent but no self discipline.
The Anglophones loved him and felt he represented the Anglophone community. At the height of Interbox’s success was a matchup that had the whole province talking. Davey Hilton versus Stephane Ouellett happened at the Bell Center and drew 17,000 fans in a spectacular ending of a fight where Ouellett was stopped in the 12th and final round by a left hook from Hilton in a fight he was winning. They would fight two more times but the tide of Interbox was starting to change with Hilton winning a title and going to prison and Ouellette all but disappearing after a few more losses from the fight scene.
Eric Lucas would win a title only to lose in Germany. Leonard Dorin, a Romanian fighter, was an action packed fighter that would win a title and then Interbox in a gamble, had a purse bid to determine a mandatory fight. They would win the bid and host the fight in Romania, only to have Dorin not make weight and promptly announce his retirement.
To say Interbox was in trouble was an understatement. The owner owed Lucas money and had taken a bathe financially on Dorin. The promotion would instead of paying Lucas have him take over the company. At this particular point they had a young fighter, Lucian Bute and Adrian Diaconu affectionately referred to as the “bash brothers” for their penchant for always knocking out their opponents and their close friendship.
Meanwhile Yvon Michel started his own promotion and signed fighters such as Jean Pascal, Joachim Alcine and Herman Ngoudjo. The tide of change was occurring fast and one particular fight changed how we all viewed local fighters. The matchup was a young fighter named Joachim Alcine facing Stephane Ouellette. At One point Alcines trainer Howard Grant became so upset with the attention Ouellette was getting was famously quoted as saying that we live in a racist province and I promise Ouellette won’t last 3 rounds.
Although I may not agree with that assessment from Alcine’s trainer, I do think that, at the time, it forced media and fans to look at ourselves and ask why can’t we just look at a fighter and become a fan of him regardless of what language he spoke. Ouellett was stopped in one round. Many things changed and one thing remained the same. Lucian Bute is still undefeated and many fighters have come and gone but one thing remains the same Bute is still undefeated and still champion, in the ever changing world of boxing.
Another reason local fans love Lucian Bute is that he defends his title here.
Other great Canadian fighters have not done that such as Lennox Lewis, Arturo Gatti, Donny Lalonde. Although Steve Molitor has he is not considered the top fighter in his division.
The fascination with Bute is, as good as he is now, we really don’t know how good he will be.