By Eric Thomas: Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Former World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Samuel Peter (31-3, 24 KO’s) will be fighting 44-year-old journeyman Ronald Bellamy (14-9-4, 9 KO’s) in a scheduled eight round bout on September 12th, at the El Palenque de la Feria, Tepic, in Nayarit, Mexico. For Peter, 28, this is the second consecutive journeyman that he’s faced since starting his comeback in July of this year. Peter lost his WBC heavyweight title in a one-sided eighth round stoppage against 6’7″ Vitali Klitschko on October 11th, 2008.
Then five months later, Peter ballooned up to a portly 265 and ended up losing by a 10-round majority decision to Eddie Chambers in March 2009. It was unthinkable that Peter would come into such an important fight like this at such a high weight, but perhaps Peter was overlooking Chambers, seeing it as an easy fight.
Peter got back down to the basics and melted off 21 pounds of fat for his next fight against journeyman Marcus McGee in July. Peter stopped McGee in the 3rd round, knocking him down three times in the process of getting the win. Peter looked much better physically than he had in quite some time, but still appeared to be 10 to 15 pounds heavier than his prime years of when he lost a close 12 round decision to Wladimir Klitschko.
The weight wasn’t the major thing, however. It was the fact that Peter fought at such a slow leisurely pace against McGee. Peter looked like a smaller, weaker version of George Foreman in the 2nd part of his career when he was in his 40s.
Peter didn’t fight with explosiveness and was unable to put together more than one punch at a time against McGee and looked very slow in terms of hand speed and ring movements. He made an old George Foreman look fast in comparison. In the opening round against McGee, Peter showed a good jab which was thrown with a lot of power.
Every once in awhile, Peter would throw a slow power shot that connected to the head of McGee. In the last seconds of the round, Peter nailed McGee with a right hand rabbit punch that dropped McGee to the canvas. McGee barely beat the count. In the 2nd round, Peter knocked McGee down again, this time with a right to the midsection.
The pace of the fight continued to be very slow for the next round. Late in the 3rd round, Peter knocked McGee down with a big left hook to the head. This time, McGee wasn’t getting up and was counted out while flat on his back on the canvas. Peter looked better than he had in a while, but the speed of his punches and his slow work rate were troubling.
Peter never was fast to begin with, but he’s fighting like an old man now and will need to be much faster if he wants to beat the better heavyweights in the division. Peter can’t afford to fight at a pedestrian pace and count on beating good heavyweights, because his punches are far too slow to land against quicker fighters.