In an early morning (at least for those of us in Los Angeles) conference call, Interbox’s president Jean Bedard announced that Showtime has balked at Lucian Bute facing Carl Froch on April 14th on their network, but they will still try and pursue that fight with or without them. When asked what other alternatives he was given in terms of American opponents, he answered ’Andre Dirrell’.

Again, this is the problem with exclusive deals with fighters and networks (last year, Bute entered into a three-fight pact with Showtime). Sometimes the network tries to act as a promoter. At times the promoters become nothing more than TV packagers. And at other times, the two sides just don’t see eye-to-eye.

I can see Showtime passing on Bute’s mandatory defense (IBF) of JP Mendy, but if Andre Ward is not available, what is wrong with Froch, who was a runner-up in ’the Super Six’? The one advantage at that Bute and Interbox have is that unlike most of their American counterparts, they don’t need a network subsidy to stay in business in Montreal.