Boxing: Lucian Bute to Face Andrea Di Luisa on PBC on NBCSN Card in August

Canadian superstar Lucian Bute is set to return to action next month when he faces Italian boxer Andrea Di Luisa in a 10-round battle. The fight will headline a Premier Boxing Champions’ PBC on NBCSN card on Saturday, Aug. 15. The action will be held inside the Bell Centre in Montreal and will air live on the network at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT.

But is coming off a unanimous decision loss to Jean Pascal in January and the former super middleweight world champion is focused on regaining his title. Bute began his career 30-0 with 24 KOs before getting knocked out in the fifth round by Carl Froch in May 2002. He bounced back with a win over Denis Grachev several months later but then dropped the verdict to Froch. A terrific fighter who has scored huge wins over foes like Jean-Paul Mendy, Glen Johnson, Sakio Bika, Librado Andrade and William Joppy, the Romanian-born Bute hopes a win over his next foe will bring back into the conversation with the rest of the 168-pound elite.

Di Luisa is a relative unknown to boxing fans. He has fought exclusively in his native country thus far and has taken on a host of decent European opponents. Di Luisa (17-2) has good power as he’s scored 13 knockouts in his career, but his two losses both came via stoppage. He has won four in a row coming in, but three of those win came via decision.

In the co-featured bout of the evening, unbeaten light heavyweights Eleider Alvarez and Isidro Ranoni Prieto will collide in a 12-rounder. Alvarez (17-0, 10 KOs) represented his native Colombia in the 2008 Olympics and has thus far looked stellar in the pros. Prieto (24-0-3) has crushing power; he’s taken out 20 opponents already in his pro campaign.