Peter To Face McCline?

By Boxing News - 09/25/2007 - Comments

valuev0420.jpgAccording to the latest boxing news, WBC interim heavyweight champion Samuel Peter (28-1, 22 KOs) has a new opponent for his October 6th title defense at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The newest possiblity is Jameel McCline (38-7-3, 23 KOs), who is currently scheduled to fight DaVarryl Williamson on the undercard of the October 6th bout. Apparently, Showtime, the cable television company, aren’t enthralled with Peter’s other choice for an opponent, Andrew Golota, who they voted not to use his as an opponent for Peter, perhaps remembering the multiple times he frozen up when challenging for a title and lost badly.

McCline, however, has equal baggage of failure, having lost three times previously – Wladimir Klitschko, Chris Byrd and Nikolay Valuev – when challenging for a heavyweight title. McCline never quit, though; He just wasn’t good enough to overcome his limited talent, which makes him the perfect opponent for the 27-year old Peter, who isn’t exactly loaded with talent himself.

Peter was orginally scheduled to challenge for the WBC heavyweight title against heavyweight champion Oleg Maskaev. However, Masakev injured his back last week, making it necessary for him to drop out of the fight. Instead of having another delay, the WBC voted to have Peter placed at the interim WBC heavyweight champion. The advantage, or course, would be that the October 6th bout would still be able to be carried out, although with a replacement needed for Maskaev. A number of fighters have volunteered to take the shot, such as John Ruiz, Hasim Rahman and Andrew Golota, to name just a few, however, none of them have been selected.

The main problem is that there are so few fighters that are really worthy for a heavyweight shot. Rahman was stopped in the 12th round by Oleg Maskaev two fights ago, Calvin Brock was destroyed by Wladimir Klitschko last year, and Ruiz has done little since being beaten by Ruslan Chagaev. The best fighters of the bunch – Alexander Dimitrenko and Alexander Povetkin – weren’t considered, although both of them would be a very big obstacle for Peter to overcome with his crude boxing skills.