By Dave Lahr: Ever since his 9th round stoppage loss to Vitali Klitschko on October 11th, former WBC heavyweight champion Samuel Peter (30-2, 23 KOs) has been written off by the boxing community, a lot of whom are saying that he’s finished as a fighter, that he’ll never be a champion again and that he was exposed by Vitali. It seems as if a lot of people are writing him off way too soon, being hasty in their estimation of his future potential.
Instead of seeing that he was beaten by a good fighter in Vitali, who had a huge even inch height advantage over the 6’1″ Peter, and used it effectively to keep Peter stuck on the outside, unable to get in his big power shots. Any other fighter in the division would have been made to look bad by Vitali on that night, and probably worse.
But instead of people seeing it as a bad match-up for Peter, they turn around and say he’s washed up as a fighter. I, for one, don’t believe any of that nonsense for an instant, because not only is Peter not washed up, I believe he’s the third best heavyweight in the division following Vitali, #1 and his brother Wladimir, #2.
But as far as the rest of the heavyweights are concerned, Peter comes out ahead of any of them. And that’s not to say that Peter has better skills than all of them, because many of them, for example, Alexander Dimitrenko and Juan Carlos Gomez, are highly skilled and maybe even better than the Klitschko brothers in terms of overall boxing skills.
However, Peter doesn’t need great skills, not with the kind of power that he had. His knockout power, which he has in both hands and his aggressive style of fighting, make him very hard to beat on any given night. When he’s fighting at his best, he’s a hard fighter to beat.
To be sure, he didn’t look good in his bout with Jameel McCline, getting knocked down three times in the first three rounds. The problem here, however, was that Peter was badly hurt from an unexpected right hand at the end of the 2nd round, which knocked him down. And in the next round, he still wasn’t recovered from the blow, and was subsequently knocked down by a hard combination.
He was then put down with another combination for the third knockdown. Peter, though, showed his toughness and recovered in the next round and controlled the fight the rest of the way, earning a close 12-round decision.
In that fight, Peter showed toughness, making it clear to people that even on an off night, he can still get the win. Most fighters would have folded up their tent and lost the fight if they had been knocked down three times in a fight, but not Peter.
However, Peter later on more than redeemed himself for that off night, by stopping then World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Oleg Maskaev in the 6th round in March 2008.
Taking away the Vitali fight, which was a mismatch due to Vitali’s big height advantage, Peter has fought well in all of the remainder of his fights, including his other loss of his career, a 12-round defeat to Wladimir Klitschko in 2005. In that fight, Peter knocked Wladimir down three times and came close to finishing him off in the 11th round.
At this time, it’s unclear who Peter will be fighting next, but right now I don’t see any fighters other than the Klitschko brothers that can beat him. British heavyweight David Haye has been getting a lot of press as of recently, calling out both of the brothers, and has been rewarded with an agreement from Vitali that he will fight him next.
However, it’s now not entirely certain whether Haye will be able to fight Vitali next, because his mandatory challenger, Juan Carlos Gomez, isn’t interested in stepping aside and letting Haye fight his fight. If Haye isn’t allowed to fight Vitali, then it will leave an open date on Haye’s schedule, which would be perfect for a fight against Peter.
I doubt that Haye would fight him, though, because Peter would likely plant him in the third row of the audience, but it would certainly make for a great fight. If Haye is as good as he says he is, then he would have a good chance at building up some credibility by facing a good heavyweight for a change and showing the world that he could beat Peter.
Like I said, I see Peter walking right through Haye and easily taking him out after sparking his tender chin. Other than Haye, Peter needs to go after the other top heavyweights in the division, starting with Chris Arreola, Dimitrenko and Sultan Ibragimov. At least call them out like Haye did, and make them have to give reasons why they don’t want to fight. Sooner or later, one of them will have to step up to the plate and fight him, and once that happens, Peter will be back on top and knocking on the door to another title.
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