By Jim Dower: Former WBC heavyweight champion Samuel Peter (30-2, 23 KOs) takes a big risk by facing Eddie chambers (33-1, 18 KOs) in a 12-round bout on March 27th at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles, California. Peter, 28, bucking the normal trend for fighters coming off a defeat, is instead seeking out the best possible opponent in Chambers, 26, who’s currently ranked number #3 in the IBF heavyweight rankings. The fight will give the winner of the bout a lot of visibility, as the fight is being shown on ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights.
Peter, ranked #5 in the IBF, is coming off a disappointing 9th round stoppage loss to Vitali Klitschko in October. It wasn’t a good performance for Peter to put it mildly. Indeed, he looked positively dreadful in taking a pounding from the 6’8” Vitali, and he was never able to land any real meaningful punches due to his limited height and reach, as well as he less than aggressive performance against the ring rusty Ukrainian.
Going into the fight, it was though that Peter, with his power and high pressure style of fighting, would take the fight to Vitali, make him fight on the back foot and take him out with a series of power shots. However, for whatever reason, Peter never really put much pressure on him other than the 1st round, and ended up staying on the outside where he was forced to eat a lot jabs and left hooks from Vitali. Finally, after the 8th round Peter quit on his stool rather than come out for the 9th.
With a beating like the one that Peter sustained against Vitali, it would probably be a good idea for Peter to take it easy for awhile and fight a one or two less threatening fighters. In doing so, he could pick up some badly needed confidence while at the same time he could recover from the punishment he took from Vitali in their bout.
Peter defeated Oleg Maskaev by a 6th round TKO in January 2008 to win the WBC heavyweight champion. Peter hadn’t looked good through the first five rounds, fighting poorly and eating lot of jabs from Maskaev. However, in the 6th round Peter suddenly came alive after Maskaev landed some hard shots, and retaliated by opening up with a salvo of shots that staggered Maskaev and sent him up against the ropes where the fight was quickly stopped by the referee.
In October 2007, Peter struggled in defeating journeyman Jameel McCline, getting knocked down three times in the early going before coming back to win a close 12-round decision for the interim WBC heavyweight title.
The fight that Peter is best known for, aside from his knockout of Jeremy Williams, is his exciting 12-round decision loss to Wladimir Klitschko in 2004.
In that fight, Peter, then slightly thinner and with a better work rate than now, knocked Wladimir down three times in the fight, but still ended up getting out-boxed and losing.
Chambers, 26, lost a 12-round decision to Alexander Povetkin in January 2008 in the IBF elimination tournament. He started off well in the first four rounds, blackening both of Povetkin’s eyes with power shots. However, unfortunately for Chambers, he faded in the second half of the fight and ended up getting outworked by the Russian.
Since then, Chambers has rebounded with wins over Rafael Butler, Livin Castillo, and Cisse Salif.
Selecting Chambers as his first opponent since Peter’s loss to Vitali seems like a really bad idea on paper. Chambers is a defensive wizard, known for being a slippery defensive fighter whose hard to fight and nearly impossible to hurt. If Peter is unable to hurt Chambers, which would seem like the likely scenario, then I can’t see Peter winning by a decision because he’s not quick enough to beat him.
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