MONTREAL — A back injury has forced former IBF super-middleweight champion Lucian Bute of Montreal to pull out of a Dec. 6 bout with Argentine Roberto Bolonti.
Promoter Jean Bedard of InterBox said Tuesday that Bute (31-2) was injured while sparring in the Philippines this week.
The fight card at the Bell Centre will go ahead with former WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (29-2-1) of Laval, Que., against Don (Da Bomb) George (25-4-2) as the main event.
Bedard said Bute should be ready to fight again early in the new year.
"He said when he decided to continue fighting that the next time he has to be 100 per cent healthy," said Bedard. "He won’t be able to train for two weeks, so they decided it was not a good idea to go in the ring."
The 34-year-old Bute hoped to revive his career by hiring renowned trainer Freddie Roach. He had been training in the Philippines with Roach and ring legend Manny Pacquiao, who will fight Chris Algieri on Saturday in Macau.
The Romanian-born Bute’s future was in doubt after he lost his title and his unbeaten record in a crushing five-round TKO loss to Carl Froch in 2012. In his last outing in January, he lost a clear decision to Pascal.
Meanwhile, the Showtime specialty channel announced that Derek Edwards (27-3-1) will be the opponent for American Andre Dirrell (23-1) in the co-feature of a fight card Dec. 19 in Quebec City. It will be an elimination bout for the No. 2 ranking in the IBF behind champion Froch and top contender James DeGale.
The main event has Adonis Stevenson of Montreal defending his WBC light heavyweight belt against Russian Dmitry Sukhotsky.
Dirrell was a top contender when he lost a 12-round split decision to Froch in England in 2009. But his ascension was stopped in 2010 when he suffered a brain injury in a victory over Arthur Abraham, who was disqualified for hitting Dirrell when he was down after he slipped and fell on a wet canvas.
Now on a comeback, it will be Dirrell’s third fight this year.