Peterson-Holt on February 22nd, in Washington, DC

By Boxing News - 01/05/2013 - Comments

peterson434By Dan Ambrose: IBF light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (30-1-1, 15 KO’s) will be defending his title on February 22nd against #4 IBF Kendall Holt (28-5, 16 KO’s) at the DC Armory, in Washington, DC. Peterson hasn’t fought since December 2011 after beating Amir Khan.

Peterson later tested positive for synthetic testosterone when he was training for a rematch with Khan. Peterson had been taking the testosterone under a doctor’s supervision. He failed to disclose this information to the Nevada Athletic Commission as well as to the promoter of Khan.

It’s good that Peterson is going to be back in the ring, but his opponent obviously isn’t a big name and not the kind of fight that Peterson wanted. I’m sure he’s just happy to still have to the title after testing positive for a banned substance.

Hold briefly held the WBO light welterweight title after stopping Ricardo Torres in the 1st round in July 2008. That was the strange fight where Torres knocked Holt down twice in the 1st round but was stopped when Holt collided heads with him. It’s still unclear why the knockout counted because they showed it in slow motion afterwards that it was a head-butt that stopped Torres.

At any rate, Holt didn’t keep the WBO title for very long, as after one successful defense against Demetrius Hopkins, Holt was beaten by Tim Bradley in April 2009. Holt was then stopped by Kaizer Mabuza in his fight after that by a 6th round stoppage in February 2010.

Holt also suffered a loss to Danny Garcia in October 2011. That’s a lot of defeats and it makes you wonder why the IBF has Holt ranked so highly. The reason is because there’s so little talent in the light welterweight division and what talent there is has been spread out among the four sanctioning bodies. This causes a decent – but hardly great – fighter like Holt to be given title shots when he really should be ranked a lot lower. A weak division gives you weak title challengers.

Holt did win his last fight against fringe contender Tim Coleman last year in March. However, Holt hasn’t fought since then and will have been out of the ring for almost an entire year by the time he faces Peterson in February.



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