By Luke Furman

Former champion Lucian Bute (30-1, 24KOs) admits that he was overtaken by the hype and felt last Saturday's fight with Carl Froch (29-2, 21KOs) was going to be an easier than expected task. Bute was wrong. Froch stopped him in five rounds and captured the IBF super middleweight title before his Nottingham fans.

Bute has a lot of respect for Froch and plans to explore a rematch, but doesn't make it clear if he wants an immediate or plans to pursue it at a later date. There is a rematch clause that calls for a second fight to take place in Bute's backyard of Montreal.

"Every athlete has to admit defeat. Great champions need to know to lose. I have to learn from this defeat. This is not the end of the world. I don't think that its the end of my career. I need to relax, [the loss] was a great mental load. I need time for my return. On Saturday night, Carl Froch was better," Bute said to the Money Channel.

"Any great athlete must have dignity, to be able to congratulate your opponent. I was the favorite and everyone thought I would win easily. We all thought that, even me. Unfortunately, you saw what happened there. I believe that in five rounds I boxed in only one, for about three minutes. I was totally dominated. After the first round, I was very sure of myself. I told my coach that [ he was] slow. But things changed in the second round."

"I do not necessarily want the belt back, I want to beat Carl Froch. I want a rematch, even if there will be no belt at stake."

Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org