By Dave Lahr: Last weekend we saw a fight on HBO that was as boring as anything you can imagine with WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal beating Chad Dawson by an 11 round technical decision. The fight was a dull match up even going into the fight. When I compare that fight with the IBF/WBO heavyweight match-up between champion Wladimir Klitschko (54-3, 48 KO’s) and former WBC heavyweight champion Samuel Peter (34-3, 27 KO’s), it seems like it would be only obvious that the Klitschko-Peter fight would be much more interesting for the average fan than watching Dawson hunt and peck against Pascal.

And yet, HBO decided to show the Pascal-Dawson fight and not show the Klitschko vs. Peter fight. What is up with that? Their last fight five years ago in 2005 was one of the most exciting bouts of the entire year, and now five years later, the rematch is likely to be just as exciting. Klitschko, 34, will be fighting Peter on September 11th at the Commerzbank-Arena, Frankfurt, Hessen, Germany. Peter has dedicated himself to training and has really slimmed down since losing back to back fights to Vitali Klitschko and Eddie Chambers.

Peter is now quick and very lethal, better than he was in the past. There’s a lot of boxing fans who aren’t giving Peter any chance of beating Wladimir, perhaps because they remember Peter’s losses to Chambers and Vitali Klitschko. But Peter is much lighter now and facing an opponent with a weak chin in Wladimir. We saw Peter knock Wladimir down three times in their previous fight in 2005, and that was done with Wladimir hanging all over Peter like a Christman ornament in his attempt to try and prevent Peter from hitting him.

The clinching from Wladimir slowed Peter down, there’s no question about that. But Peter was still able to knock Wladimir down three times and had him within a eyelash of being knocked out in the 11th. Wladimir came back in the 12th, fighting for his life and was able to stagger Peter with a hard left hook to the head. It was a great shot but Wladimir looked too afraid to follow up with any additional shots after that.

I think HBO blew it big time by not taking this fight, because this is going to be much better than Pascal-Dawson and even better than Devon Alexander vs. Andriy Kotelnik. I think we’re finally going to see Wladimir get knocked out and it’s going to be good to have a new champion.