CARL HEWITT’S RECAP OF KHAN VS. PETERSON

By: CARL HEWITT

 

WBA and IBF 140 lb. champion Amir Khan came to “conquer” America again, but on Saturday night, the combination of top contender, Lamont Peterson and referee, Joe Cooper proved to be too much to overcome. In what has to be the most bizarre officiating job since, well…Russell Mora in the first Agbeko-Mares fight, Khan lost his titles in what amounted to petty larceny.

 
It wasn’t as though Peterson didn’t fight well enough to make the outcome debatable – he did. What really tarnished a tremendous fight on Saturday night was the arbitrary manner in which Cooper enforced the rules. Peterson was never warned for leading with his head, nor was Khan ever warned for applying a headlock to Peterson and forcefully pulling his head down. Instead, the referee chose to penalize Khan a point for “pushing” on two separate occasions, once in Round 7 and again in the pivotal final round.

We’ve seen worse decisions this year alone – Lara-Williams and Mattyesse-Alexander readily come to mind. However, it’s been quite some time since boxing has witnessed an important fight decided by such arbitrary officiating. Grappling, holding and pushing are all part of in-fighting. In fact, such decorated champions as 168 lb. champ Andre Ward and WBO 140 lb. titlist Tim Bradley are pretty good at it! When have Ward or Bradley been warned for their roughhouse tactics, let alone penalized for them?

In winning Khan’s unified title, Peterson fought the fight of his life – let’s not take anything away from the D.C. native’s gallant effort on Saturday. He weathered Khan’s furious start and a flash knockdown in the very first round to close the gap on the scorecards by the eighth round. However, Peterson couldn’t sustain the body punching that appeared to wear Khan down in the middle rounds. Fighting cautiously and effectively off the back foot, the champion from England appeared to win three of the final four rounds to cement a close decision victory…and then Khan’s other opponent in the ring this night dealt the decisive blow in Round 12 with his egregious penalty. A one point Round 12 for Khan was turned into an even round by Cooper’s puzzling second point deduction for pushing off.
What struck this writer as damning was Cooper’s refusal to even warn Peterson for leading with his head, a tactic he employed most of the fight. Even more puzzling was Golden Boy Promotion’s decision to agree to a referee lacking in big fight experience. Richard Schaefer was on the phone with the WBC’s Jose Sulaiman within minutes of Bernard Hopkins’ draw with reigning champion Jean Pascal in Canada last year. Within weeks, the WBC demanded a Hopkins-Pascal rematch. Where was Schaefer Saturday night while Khan’s pocket was being picked by a referee bent on putting the wrong kind of stamp on an otherwise outstanding fight?

Not enough credit is given to Khan for honoring his IBF mandatory defense and fighting it on his opponent’s home turf. Amir could have simply opted to face his WBA mandatory, Paul McCloskey again, but chose a much harder path in coming for war in the nation’s capitol. No fighter at 140 lbs. has been more willing to step up to the plate and deliver the goods recently than Amir Khan. It’s for this reason that he deserves an immediate rematch with Lamont Peterson. But is an immediate rematch the wise course of action for a fighter who’s been on the fast track lately? Fellow countryman and world champion Carl Froch stated earlier this week that he believes that Khan needs to clear his head with a “breather” or two before stepping into another championship bout so soon – I tend to agree!
The take-away of all of this is the fact that any feint glimmer of hope Khan had of landing a Floyd Mayweather fight this Summer is essentially out the window, probably forever. Since a lucrative Mayweather bout was the sole motivation for Khan to move up in weight class to 147 lbs., how will those plans be affected by the loss to Peterson? Instead of facing Mayweather at 147, Amir is now looking at the prospect of having to wade through 147 lb. contenders such as Kell Brook, Randall Bailey, Floyd Mayweather and Mike Jones – if he’s even able to win the rematch with Peterson in a few months.

For Peterson, the win Saturday night means he will make considerably more in the Khan rematch than the $650,000 he made for his title-winning victory. The new champion can now be considered among the division’s elite, with the prospect of a rematch with Tim Bradley in the near future. As inspiring as his upset win was, though, it was overshadowed by the perplexing performance of the third man in the ring.

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