By William Mackay: Amir Khan still sounds as if he hasn’t yet come to terms with the fact that he lost to Lamont Peterson, and is still grasping at straws to try and comprehend how he lost his two titles. Khan’s management at Golden Boy Promotions has already appealed the decision to the IBF, WBA and Washington State Athletic Commission to try and have Khan reinstated as the champion by having the results reversed.

But it seems rather odd for a professional fighter is that Khan doesn’t understand that pushing off is something that can lead to point deductions and/or a warning from the referee. Khan thinks pushing off is legal in boxing.

Khan told Sky Sports News “In the rule book there’s no warning for pushing, especially points deducted, and I got two points deducted.”

I’m not sure what rule book Khan is looking at but the Rules of boxing rule book I found at boxrec states that pushing isn’t allowed in boxing. But for the sake of argument let’s say that boxing is allowed at all times whenever a fighter wants. Do you know what kind of an advantage that would be? You could just take a tall fighter and put him in the ring and let him shove the other guy around the ring all night long and hit him every time the guy got thrown off balance by one of the pushes. You could shove with your left hand and punch with the right. It goes without say that it would give the taller fighter an unfair advantage.

From what I’ve read pushing off is allowed when a fighter is trying to escape being held or when they’re trapped against the ropes. But what Khan was doing wasn’t just those things. Khan was pushing Lamont Peterson when he was in the center of the ring, just trying to fend him off with either one hand or both hands. Indeed, most of the shoves that Khan gave Peterson that I could see involved Khan shoving him while in the center of the ring. And these weren’t gentle shoves; Khan was really rearing back and shoving Peterson back a couple of feet.

I think Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach has been asleep at the wheel with Khan. I mean if he hasn’t noticed that Khan is pushing off all the time and pulling down on his opponents’ head, then he must be losing his eyesight. How can he have not tried to correct these glaring problems? Didn’t Roach ever tell Khan that pushing off the way he likes to do is considered fouling?

Did Roach just ignore it or did he assume that the referees would blissfully continue to let Khan shove his opponents around the ring all night in order to get an edge or prevent them from getting inside. Shoving someone to keep them from getting inside isn’t a replacement for someone who doesn’t know how to fight on the inside. You’re supposed to work out of a situation by fighting, not by shoving someone clear across the ring or grabbing their heads like they’re some kind of steer at roping contest and start pushing down on their heads.

Khan hasn’t learned how to fight on the inside or to fight out of an inside attack. Instead, Khan has been getting by with shoving his opponents and grabbing their heads. Both of those are fouls and it’s so sad that referees have turned a blind eye to this kind of behavior from Khan in the ring. Someone should have said something about it a long time ago so that Khan could have learned how to properly deal with an inside pressure fighter instead of shoving them across the ring.

The bad thing about Khan not realizing that pushing off is a foul is that he will almost surely continue to use this in future fights unless a referee decides to do his job and try to stop him. Having to face a fighter that is shoving you around the ring, as well as grabbing you around the head for headlocks and to pull your head down, is going to make it really tough on his opponents. It’s hard enough to deal with his hand speed, but to have him shoving and grabbing your head, that makes it doubly hard.