By William Mackay: Paulie Malignaggi had no issues whatsoever from the performance of referee Joe Cooper in working the Amir Khan vs. Lamont Peterson fight last weekend. Khan lost two points in that fight and he, his promoters from Golden Boy Promotions, and Khan’s many boxing fans, felt that that the referee was in the wrong for penalizing him twice for pushing Peterson to keep him off.

Malignaggi told MMA Nation “I don’t have a problem with it. I fought Amir Khan. I think he gets away with pushing you down all the time, pushing you off. So I don’t have a problem with it. I thought finally someone did something about it. He [Khan] knocked out Zab Judah by holding him down with one hand and hitting him to the body with the other hand. So it’s just a situation where I think (the ref) did his job.”

I agree with Malignaggi. The referee did his job finally and took points away from Khan. However, I think Cooper was being more than fair because I thought Khan should have lost points for pushing Peterson’s head down all night long. Khan had a ridiculous excuse for pushing down on Peterson’s head, saying “He [Peterson] kept putting his head low. I couldn’t do anything; he was so low. He was coming in with his head.”

Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach also tried to justify Khan’s constant fouling of Peterson by saying “The way he [Peterson] would attack, he would rush in with his head. He [Khan] could either get head butted or push his head down.”

That’s a silly statement, of course, because if you look at Peterson, he was grabbed while standing straight up. Khan would lasso his arms around Peterson’s head and pull down on it time after time after time. And this isn’t the only fight in which Khan does this kind of thing. He did it constantly against Marcos Maidana and used it to beat Zab Judah. Neither of those guys were coming in with their heads, and yet Khan was grabbing their heads pulling down on them. Khan was also grabbing Peterson in headlocks and marching him around.

It’s nice that Roach is backing his fighter Khan with his damage control for why he fouled so much, but it doesn’t jibe with what actually happened in the fight. The closer truth is Khan can’t fight on the inside, can’t handle pressure, and so he grabs his opponents heads to stop their attacks or he pushes them off, as Malignaggi pointed out. In this case, the referee Joe Cooper wasn’t having any of Khan’s pushing and took points away. In watching the Khan-Maidana fight last December, I couldn’t understand why referee Joe Cortez allowed Khan to push Maidana hard when he was coming inside to try and fight.

Khan was really shoving him hard and Cortez just stood there. I thought to myself, ‘How is Cortez allowing Khan to do this? Where is the control of the fight.’ Thankfully, Cooper was on his job and at least took some points off for Khan’s incessant fouling. Like I said, I think Cooper would have been perfectly in the right had he taken off even more points for the pulling down on Peterson’s head. Peterson himself said he thought Khan should have lost points for this, because it really bothered him in the fight.