By Eric Thomas: Promoter Don King revealed yesterday on Steve Bunce’s Boxing Hour show that he wants Wladimir Klitschko to face Samuel Peter (30-1, 23 KOs) in Nigeria in the near future. Of course, the fight is contingent on Peter, 28, defeating Vitali Klitschko, Wladimir’s older brother) on Saturday night in their WBC title match clash at the O2 Arena in Berlin, Germany. King said, “If he [Peter] destroys Vitali and then jumps on his brother and gets revenge for the loss he suffered, the only loss he ever suffered, then you will see more excitement in the air in the heavyweight division.”

Wladimir, 32, previously fought Peter several years ago in September 2005, and defeated him by a 12-round unanimous decision. However, Peter knocked Wladimir down three times in the bout, and had Wladimir literally on the run for most of the fight trying to avoid Peter’s thunderous punches.

Many boxing experts agree that Peter was perhaps a little too green at the time of the fight, as he was a young 25 and wasn’t quite yet ready for Wladimir. However, Peter has improved immensely since that time, defeating excellent fighters like James Toney, Jameel McCline and winning the WBC belt with a win over Oleg Maskaev. For his part, Wladimir has won his last six fights, beating Chris Byrd to capture the IBF title, Calvin Brock, Ray Austin, Lamon Brewster, Sultan Ibagimov and Tony Thompson. However, none of them, as good as they are, compare to the power and ferociousness of Peter.

Wladimir has gotten three years older since that time whereas Peter is just now entering his prime years as a fighter. One would hope that Don King can make this fight come off, because there’s really no other opponents out there that bring as much excitement into a fight as Peter does. However, first he must dispatch Vitali Klitschko on Saturday night. The older Klitschko, however, hasn’t seen action in four long years and before that he had suffered a number of debilitating injuries that had caused him to retire from boxing.

Considering his long period away from the sport, his now advanced age and his of any tune-up fights, it would seem likely that Peter will be victorious on Saturday night. Perhaps it’s best that Peter does come out on top, because with Vitali as the champion there’s much less options for exciting heavyweight bouts. Vitali has said previously many times that he will never fight his brother, so that fights off the table.

If he does win the title, his mandatory challenger is Cuban Juan Carlos Gomez, a fighter with a style much like former heavyweight champion Chris Byrd, who previously gave Vitali a lot of trouble in their April 2000 bout, leading to Vitali quitting on his stool in the 9th round. My guess is that Vitali will probably never fight Gomez and will instead be looking at other bouts, which would probably be even less appealing.

However, with Vitali out of the way, Peter is free to avenge his only defeat on his record by going after Wladimir. This is the much more appealing fight, and if not for Vitali’s sudden comeback, we’d probably be looking at this fight rather the much less appealing bout between a rusty Vitali and the champion Peter.

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