It was supposed to have been a time for celebration, promoters beaming with pride as Interbox announced the re-signing of their star possession, Lucian Bute to a new contract in the spring of 2007. Then it hit, a casual conversation with trainer Stephane Larouche who delivered a blow that came in like a Bute body shot, not fully noticeable at first, but resonating long after it was delivered. "Canada has always been a country of opponents, we want to build Bute into a champion. A headline attraction."

A country of opponents? How dare he? We had champions, hell, Larouche himself had world champions, in fact he had more than anybody with two in the past with Eric Lucas and Leonard Dorin, and two more on the way with Bute and an integral part in establishing Adrian Diaconu before letting Pierre Bouchard take the reigns.

How could he paint the entire country with one brush? We always had world champions and with Molitor and Alcine on top at the time, times were better than they had ever been.

But scratch the surface of the statement and while we've always had champions and had fighters on the U.S. cable giants HBO and Showtime, with the fractured landscape that defines world championship boxing these days, a closer look reveals that as painful as the blow might be to digest, it very well might be true.

Saturday night might finally be the turning point that will see the country's fighters move from opponents to headline performers with Bute leading the way. Bute entered the fight with question marks while the challenger Librado Andrade was riding the wave of his last second knockdown of Bute and had made appearances on HBO before. Andrade was certainly the known commodity while we were in holding pattern to see what the champion was made of.

Was Bute's chin a question mark? Would he demonstrate enough power to keep the hard-charging Andrade away from him? Would an earlier start by Andrade finish the job he had begun too late in the pair's first bout?

Bute had the IBF belt and an undefeated record but was largely an unknown quantity as a starring attraction in the U.S. and could have easily run all night and stunk out the joint, something that would have had the HBO crew scurrying for border, never to return. Merely winning wouldn't be good enough, the Romanian had to win with conviction.

But instead Bute stood and delivered. Serving up his signature punch, a howitzer left uppercut to the body that spelt a quick night for Andrade, stopping the rugged Mexican for the first time in his career. Not only that, it cemented Bute as a future performer on the network.

"They were really impressed with the organization of Interbox and performance of Lucian," said Stephane Larouche, who not only serves as Bute's trainer but also a technical director for Interbox. "They said we were as good as any place in the world and expressed interest in working with us again."

That's certainly hasn't always been the case, too many times Canucks have been in over their heads, over-matched and served up as fodder for others. After taking Lennox Lewis and Arturo Gatti out of the occasion, there's never a defining career performance by a Canadian on the big stage.

"Unfortunately that's the way the U.S. has always perceived Canada, as opponents," agreed trainer and broadcaster Russ Anber when questioned.

Arguably Canada's most famous boxer of the modern era, heavyweight George Chuvalo, was best known for facing the likes of Ali, Frazier, Foreman and Patterson, all loses for a man who in most likelihood would have been wearing a world title belt had he competed in today's alphabet soup era.

Unfortunately not much changed over the years since the days of Chuvalo. Both Fernand Marcotte and Donnie Lalonde were both notches in Sugar Ray Leonard's stellar career, Gaetan Hart didn't measure up to Aaron Pryor and Eric Lucas was fed to the likes of Roy Jones and Fabrice Tiozzo before coming back and winning a world championship belt.

Otis Grant who a staple on the old USA Network also met up with Jones on HBO and looked like he might parlay it into something significant for the future before being forced out of the game by a near fatal car crash.

Other names abound, Kyvelos, Vanderpool (both Fitz and Syd), Demers, Ngoudjo, Lontchi, and Bergeron all had opportunities on the big stage and couldn't quite grasp the moment.

Likewise, our world champions who performed admirably and were a source of national pride, all were cut down before obtaining true star status on the world stage. Dorin, Lucas, Alcine and Molitor never were able to parlay world title belts into being international stars.

Bute looks like he might be able to change that, but Saturday was just the first step.

"We needed a statement," said Larouche of his champion who received a rousing ovation at the Montreal Canadiens game Tuesday night. "HBO's fear was that with a lot of truly popular fighters, they're heavily protected and can't fight. Lucian I think proved to be the real deal. He's a generous fighter, even when he's cruising; he tries his best to entertain and to give back to the crowd."

But while Larouche wanted a statement, he didn't want this to be thought of as a career defining moment for the undefeated southpaw. "I have all the respect in the world for Andrade," said the trainer, "But you have to view him as gatekeeper and somebody you have to get by if you want to achieve success. If you're a boxer with great talent and ability, if you can't beat him, it might be time to reevaluate. I wanted Lucian to look back two years from now at this fight not as his biggest threat, but as just another step along the way to bigger and better things."

What those things are right now will remain to be seen. Kelly Pavlik's name has been mentioned and it is a fight Larouche has no problems with. That's a fight television can set up. It has all the ingredients. Puncher versus boxer. Everything. We've been dreaming of this fight for over a year. We'd have no problem with it."

If you wish to contact the author of this article, email Dave Spencer at FightNews Canada