By Luke Furman

IBF super middleweight champion Carl Froch was not impressed with Lucian Bute's decision win over Denis Grachev from Saturday night. But doesn't seem to mind, or care, about Froch's opinion. The win over Grachev will set up a rematch with Froch in early 2013. Froch must survive a scheduled title defense on November 17th against Yusaf Mack.

"Let's be honest, it wasn't the most impressive performance from Lucian Bute that I've ever seen," he told Sky Sports. "It wasn't vintage by any stretch of the imagination. Bute didn't really impress, but it was a comeback fight from a devastating defeat against myself, so what did people expect? He needed to find his feet again, find his confidence. I'm sure he's done that. I think mentally he needed to get that fight in the bag."

Bute brushed off the comments.

"Even when I had the best performance of my career, Froch spoke ill of me. This is not a surprise to me. He's been talking bad about me for years," Bute said in a televised interview in Romania.

"Every person has a right to their opinion. But for me, he should focus on his fight in two weeks and I hope he will win. A fight against Froch will be very significant, for me and for Quebec."

Against Grachev, Bute took some punishment at times and had a tougher battle than his team expected. Bute was happy with the performance.

"I needed to make a fight like this, against an opponent who is unbeaten, a tough opponent who came here to win. I needed that experience. We should not forget that I came back after a hard defeat against Carl Froch in England. And [taking that loss] was hard for me, I would say very hard. I needed a fight like this. A hard fight where I got hit from time to time. It was hard, but I'm really happy with my performance on Saturday," Bute said.

Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org.