By Jason Kim: Well, former World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight champion Samuel Peter (30-3, 23 KOs) took a big risk in facing the small but wily Eddie Chambers (34-1, 18 KOs), and sure paid the price for it by losing by a 10-round majority decision on Friday night at the Nokia theatre, in Los Angeles, California.

Coming off a punishing 9th round defeat to Vitali Klitschko five months ago in October 2008, the logical thing for Peter to have done would be to face a lesser fighter than Chambers, preferably one that Peter could knock out in a couple of rounds.

Instead, Peter took on one of the best defensive artists in the heavyweight division, second perhaps to Chris Byrd, and ended up losing by the judge’s scores of 95-95, 96-94 and 99-91. Peter didn’t help himself any by coming into the fight at a bloated 265, a career high for him.

It was almost as if he had set about to fail on purpose by coming in so heavy against a fighter as fast as Chambers. Logic would dictate that when facing a small, fast, weak punching fighter like Chamber, who’s only way of winning is by decision, a fighter should come in as light as possible in order to maneuver around the ring and have more quickness.

Whatever the case, Peter’s added bulk didn’t help him any against Chambers, and ended up having many of his slow shots picked off on the gloves of Chambers. Oh, Peter was able land alright, but not nearly as often as Chambers was doing in the fight.

Most of Chamber’s shots were the pesky variety, thrown with a lot of speed but not much power. But, Peter was just too slow to answer back with his own big shots before Chambers would escape to the outside, out of range of Peter’s big looping shots.

With the fight still somewhat close in the 9th and 10th, Chambers pulled away by drilling Peter with some nice combinations in both rounds. By then, Peter looked really tired, and much older than his 28 years.
The loss puts Peter out of range for another title shot in 2009, and he’s got a lot of work cut out for him if he wants to get his boxing career back in order in 2010.

With his exciting style of fighting, it’s certainly possible that he can get a couple of quick wins behind him and find himself in position for a title, but I doubt it. He might have to wait until 2011 to get another shot a title, and only then if he keeps winning. He can speed up this process by taking some more risks by fighting a talented top 10 heavyweight, but as we saw tonight, that’s probably not a wise thing for Peter to do.

As for Chambers, 26, ranked #3 in the IBF, he’s going to have to wait in line behind both David Haye and Alexander Povetkin. Haye is fighting Wladimir next in June, and if Wladimir still has the title, then by the end of the year Povetkin will finally get his chance.

Even when Chambers does get a shot, it’s doubtful he’ll get anything other than a good payday out of it, because he’s simply too small and weak to beat giants like Wladimir and his brother Vitali Klitschko. Those would be easy fights for the Klitschko brothers.

If at all possible, Chambers needs to try and go after Nikolay Valuev or Ruslan Chagaev, because he’d have a much better chance of beating them. I doubt he’d beat either one of them, but I think he’d be competitive with the 7-foot Valuev.

In other action on the card, 2008 Olympic super middleweight Shawn Estrada (3-0, 3 KOs) scored another 1st round knockout, stopping Ray Craig (5-5, 2 KOs). Estrada charged Craig at the start of the fight, throwing flurries and quickly putting Craig down three times before the bout was finally stopped at 1:41 of the 1st. Since turning pro last year, Estrada has fought this way in all of his bout, bum rushing his opponents at the start of the fight and trying to take them out in the 1st.

It’s effective but probably not the smartest thing for him to do, because I can’t see how he’s learning anything from taking out his badly overmatched opponents like this. Sooner or later, he’s going to find someone that stands up to his wild, amateurish looking attacks and then there could be problems for Estrada, especially if he’s not accustomed to fighting beyond the 1st round.

Undefeated lightweight prospect John Molina (16-0, 12 KOs) defeated Carlos Vinan (8-7-3, 1 KOs) by a 2nd round TKO. The fight was entertaining for the 1st round, as Vinan came out slugging and giving Molina all he could handle for awhile.

However, Molina got serious in the 2nd round and took him out with a series of huge power shots to the head. Referee David Mendoza stepped in and stopped the slaughter at 2:41 of the 2nd round.

Javier Molina (1-0, 1 KOs), another former Olympian, stopped Jaime Cabrera (0-1) in the 1st round, dropping him twice to the canvas with nice body shots. After the 2nd knockdown, the fight was stopped at 1:50 of the round.

Talented light heavyweight prospect Ismayl Sillakh (7-0, 6 KOs) stopped Carlos Reyes (4-1, 2 KOs) in the 3rd round.