By Scott Gilfoid: Undefeated lightweight contender Anthony Peterson (27-0, 19 KOs) won a workmanlike 12-round unanimous decision last night over Fernando Trejo (30-14-4, 18 KOs) to win the interim NABF lightweight title at the Orleans Hotel & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The final judges’ scores were 120-108, 119-109 and 120-108. Despite winning the fight by a huge margin, Peter looked far from a future champion, showing little power, enthusiasm or any real fluidity, as he fought almost like a robot for much of the fight. He often grunted loudly with every punch he threw, for what reason I have no idea.
His punches had little power to speak of on them, and it seemed that he was trying to scare Trejo into submitting by grunting loudly each time he attempted to hit him. By the 3rd round, I was officially sick of listening to the squeal of Peterson, and was thinking strongly of placing cotton in both of my ears to drown out his noises. A fighter that mainly uses his left hand, lacking any power at all in his right which he chooses to use as only a token weapon, he was supposedly going to use his right hand more in this fight – to show that he had a right hand.
As it turned out, he didn’t, using mostly left hook like always; Not that it mattered any, because Trejo, 33, a smallish fighter who formerly fought as a super featherweight, was hopelessly out of his class against the 23 year-old Peterson for most of the fight. Trejo’s power, or lack thereof, was even less than Peterson’s, which says all you want to know about his power.
Neither of them could break wet bread with their punches, and what we had in effect was 12-rounds of love taps between them. Peterson may have been a good amateur fighter at one time, winning the 2003 National Golden Gloves Lightweight Championship, but as far as development as a professional, he looks mostly like a B-level fighter and not an A. Ranked #5 in the WBC, #3 in the WBO and #9 in the IBF lightweight division, Peterson appears to have been shot to the top of the division without having proven himself against any top level opposition. It’s unfortunate, because when he does get a title shot, he’s going to be badly over his head and likely taken out in short order.
Looking stiff and mechanical, Peterson easily won the first two rounds, jabbing non stop and jabbering with his grunting noise six bits to a dozen. He mostly was short-arming his jabs, missing badly as if he had no intention of really landing the jabs, and was using them to just keep Trejo at a distance.
If that was the case, he could have at least spared his loud grunts, because they weren’t needed. As for Trejo, he generally followed Peterson around, doing little, just taking shots and throwing excruciatingly slow shots – mostly hooks. He had no problem landing his punches, though, because Peterson had pretty horrible defense, rarely blocking anything with gloves, preferring, I guess, to use his head.
Rounds three through ten were essentially the same as the first two rounds, only that Peterson began throwing more combinations as the rounds progressed. In that, he still lacked any real power whatsoever, and did no damage to Trejo. Peterson tried to take the fight to Trejo, looking to be laboring hard in an effort to win by a knockout, but he couldn’t come up with anything big enough to worry Trejo. This fight seemed to show in clear colors that Peterson has big problems in front of him, specifically with his lack of power. At 23, one would expect him to already have his power in place, and could move on towards fixing his lack of defense. Without any real power, I predict a dark future full of problems once he steps it up and gets a title shot against one of the lightweight champions.