By Allen Fox: Promoter Oscar De La Hoya thinks that Bob Arum is purposely using his fighter WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao as bait to keep IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson from signing an immediate rematch with Amir Khan.

Arum selected Peterson as one of the four fighters that he’s considering to match against his cash cow fighter Pacquiao and there is a lot more money for Peterson in a fight against Pacquiao then there would be in a rematch with Khan.

De La Hoya is trying to wrap up a rematch between Peterson and Khan as soon as possible so that Khan can show that he’s not the same fighter that Peterson beat last December, and that it was a case of Peterson winning with the help of the referee and bad scoring. The title belts that Peterson has now in his possession are likely incidental to De La Hoya and Golden Boy.

What they really want is for Khan to be able to avenge the defeat in style to show the boxing world that Khan really is the next big pay per view star in the sport. Peterson’s win over Khan last December was a big step backwards for Khan and Golden Boy in their dreams of making Khan a star. They need to try and undo it as fast as possible and not let Peterson escape.

De La Hoya said this on his twitter: “Amir Khan wants a rematch with Peterson and now Arum again is going to keep the fans from watching a great fight. Don’t you get it? Arum is now dangling Pacquiao in his [Peterson] face so he can sign him and stop the rematch.”

De La Hoya has a point. Arum may have chosen Peterson as one of the four just to make De La Hoya and Golden Boy suffer in agony while they wait for him to make his choice. He may not select Peterson, but just using up time by stringing him along is putting off Golden Boy’s attempts putting together the rematch between Khan and Peterson so that they can try and undo Khan’s bad performance from his last fight.

If Arum is out to get De La Hoya and Golden Boy, then the best possible way to do that is to select Peterson for Pacquiao. Peterson would then likely be stripped of his IBF and WBA titles and Khan could pick them back up. However, that’s not how De La Hoya and Golden Boy want Khan to get the titles back. The titles mean nothing right now.

What they need is for Khan to avenge the defeat and they could end up waiting a long, long time if Peterson gets the fight with Pacquiao. At best, I can’t see Peterson fighting Khan again until 2013. Khan and Golden Boy are in a big hurray for Khan to win this rematch and then have Khan move up to the welterweight division where he’ll go after Floyd Mayweather Jr. It will be hard for them to do this coming off of a loss to Peterson. The gleam has been taken off of Khan by the Peterson fight, and if he’s not able to get closure on that, then he’s going to be limping into the welterweight division instead of moving forward looking like a future champion.