WBA president says Khan-Peterson rematch should happen due to ‘Mystery Man’ controversy

By Boxing News - 01/06/2012 - Comments

Image: WBA president says Khan-Peterson rematch should happen due to 'Mystery Man' controversyBy Dan Ambrose: Amir Khan may have received support for his case that he deserves a rematch with IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson from WBA president Gilberto Mendoza on Friday.

This comes after the news about a mystery man sitting next to one of the judges during the Khan-Peterson fight last month. The mystery man, wearing a hat, was seen lifting and looking over what appeared to be the scorecard of one of the judges.

Mendoza said express.co.uk “There should be a rematch. The Washington DC Commission did not behave properly.”

The International Boxing Federation (IBF) and WBA will make a ruling on Khan’s appeal on January 18th and there is a high probability that an immediate rematch will be ordered at the minimum. Khan’s promoter Richard Schaefer wants a lot more than just an immediate rematch, though. He wants Khan’s loss to be overturned and the fight changed to a no contest in the record books.

That would allow Khan to keep his two title belts and use that as an argument that he should have won the fight had there not been the mystery man as well as two point deductions taken away from him. Where Khan is hurt in all of this is all of the things that he and his promoter are complaining about. If it was just the mystery man then that would be understandable.

But Khan is also taking issue with his two points taken off for him fouling Peterson, and Khan thinks he was unfairly penalized. Schaefer and Khan’s complaint on that issue is that they feel that pushing isn’t a foul and isn’t something that is states in the rule book that points should be taken off. Khan and Schaefer also have problems with the referee not taking points away from Peterson for him coming in with his head.

So that’s another complaint. Khan also has problems with the amount of time that it took for judges to turn in their scorecards. Taken as a whole, it makes Khan and Schaefer look as if they’re throwing up anything they can just to try and get the fight result overturned. It reeks of poor sportsmanship. You wonder if this kind of thing will happen again in future fights where Khan loses by decision.

The public will have a long memory about this fight, so this may be the only fight where Khan can possibly get a decision overturned. But if he makes a habit of this, then he’s going to look like someone who just can’t accept when he loses and starts coming up with any kind of excuse under the sun that he can find.



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