Schaefer wants Khan’s loss to Peterson erased with a ‘No-contest’ ruling by the IBF and WBA

By Boxing News - 01/07/2012 - Comments

Image: Schaefer wants Khan's loss to Peterson erased with a 'No-contest' ruling by the IBF and WBABy William Mackay: With the ‘Mystery man’ video revealed, Golden Boy Promotions CEO believes he has more than enough doubt cast on the judging for the Amir Khan vs. Lamont Peterson fight to overturn the decision and have it changed from a loss for his fighter Khan to a ‘No-contest’ by the IBF and WBA sanctioning bodies when they meet on January 18th to decide on Schaefer’s appeal.

Schaefer wants one of two things from the meeting: A.) The fight result changed to a no contest so that Khan can have his titles back or B.) An immediate rematch ordered by the IBF and WBA.

The mystery man, who reportedly works for the International Boxing Federation, wasn’t working in that capacity on the night of the Khan-Peterson fight, yet he was still able to sit with one of the judges and from appearances, look at his scoring of the rounds. It was a blunder for the judge not to insist that the mystery man take a seat, but who knows what was going through his mind at the time.

Khan lost the fight by a 12 round split decision and the mystery man had no influence on what happened in the ring on that night. He wasn’t the one that took two points off from Khan for his shoving of Peterson. That was Khan’s bad. He was warned repeatedly but was unable or unwilling to change his game based on the feedback he was getting from referee Joe Cooper. Khan looked for the most part in full panic mode from the second half of the fight on.

His footwork and technique eroded into a sloppy amateur style where he ran constantly, and repeatedly fouled Peterson to try and keep him off of him. The fouling involved Khan giving Peterson hard shoves, pulling down on his head constantly, and putting him in headlocks to keep Peterson from fighting. Khan’s fans oddly enough don’t feel that Khan did any fouling in the fight and thought it was okay for him to shove and pull down on Peterson’s head. Perhaps love is blind. I don’t know what to think because Khan fought like a schoolboy in the Peterson fight.

Khan lost points because he was unable to stop shoving Peterson because that part of his game has been so imbedded in his style that he simply couldn’t stop. It’s more of a fault of Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach, who should have weaned Khan off this fouling tactic a long time ago. It’s also the fault of passive referees that have let Khan get away with shoving and pulling down on his opponent’s heads in past fights. If you look at Khan’s fight with Marcos Maidana, Khan’s shoving may have saved him from being knocked out in the 10th round because when he was hurt, he was shoving Maidana hard to keep him away. The referee needed to have warned Khan in the early rounds about this and then taken off points in the 10th when Khan was fighting for survival.

It matters little if the Khan-Peterson fight results are overturned. Khan has already been exposed in the Peterson fight, and shown to be a sore loser. Unless Khan can learn how to fight without fouling and running for his life, he’s going to have more fights like the Peterson bout. Khan can’t have Golden Boy come to his rescue every time he gets beaten or have the judges and referees put under scrutiny for his own failings in the ring.

I can only imagine what will happen the next time Khan loses on points. Will a camera be put on the judges to monitor their every twitch and then one theory after another tossed up to cause doubt about Khan’s loss until something sticks with the sanctioning bodies and fans. If you’re going to use the mystery man as the excuse for why Khan should have won the fight or then it means you’re ignoring what actually happened in the ring on that night. A



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