Carl Froch believes he may have ended the career of Lucian Bute after administering a five-round beating on Saturday night.
Briton fears Bute may not return from heavy defeat
Carl Froch believes he may have ended the career of Lucian Bute after administering a five-round beating on Saturday night.
The pair had agreed a 'home and away' contract whereby the pair would fight again in Canada later this year should Bute lose his IBF title.
However, such was the nature of the beating that the victorious Briton not only thinks Bute won't want a second fight, he believes he may never lace on the gloves again.
"Personally I don't think Bute will want the rematch because as a fighter, I looked into his eyes and after round three I saw something drain from him," he said. "Something only a fighter can see.
"I don't think he's going to want to fight again, let alone fight me again. Honestly.
"He came here unbeaten and got absolutely, devastatingly beaten. That doesn't happen often to top-level fighters.
"That is a beating, the whupping of all whuppings. I've not seen it back yet. I'm not bragging. I don't want to hurt anybody, I'm not proud of hurting people but that's what I'm in the ring to do. If the boot was on the other foot, you know what would happen.
"That was some performance by me - and I think it was a career-ending performance. You never know. I don't know what he's made of, so we'll see."
Game over
Froch said he still wanted to unify the super-middleweight titles, and that would mean avenging last year's defeat to Andre Ward.
"Fighting like that, I'd beat anybody in my weight division," he added. "There's nobody that can touch me. If I catch Ward on the chin with some of the shots like I landed on Bute, it's game over. It's a simple as that.
"Andre Ward had a good night and Carl Froch had a bad night and that's the reason he won that fight.
"But in a rematch - especially over here - I do feel that with a performance like I put in against Bute, I'd beat anybody in the world, including Andre Ward."
Another potential fight is to try to avenge the only other loss on his record to Mikkel Kessler - ringside on Saturday night - two years ago.
"That is one that could be a tasty dust-up in the future. It would be nice to avenge the defeat, it really would. I'll let Eddie Hearn (Froch's promoter) see where we go from here.
"That's a fight I would take in a heartbeat."
