By Jason Kim: After only five fights, former World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight champion Samuel Peter (34-4, 27 KO’s) was released by Top Rank on Friday, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. Top Rank signed the 30-year-old Peter after he had been beaten in back to back fights by Vitali Klitschko and Eddie Chambers.

Peter rebounded with the help of careful matchmaking by Top Rank to win his next four fights, albeit against 2nd tier opposition. However, when Peter looked terrible in getting stopped in the 10th round by IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko on September 11th, Top Rank decided to cut Peter lose rather than continue to promote him.

Peter’s business partner Ivalyo Gotzev, says they’re going to focus on fighting the other top fighters in the heavyweight division, like WBA heavyweight champion David Haye, Tomasz Adamek, Chris Arreola and Alexander Povetkin rather than taking on the Klitschkos again.

Peter has tried his luck at fighting the Klitschko brothers on three separate occasions and lost all three of the fights. Gotzev says “The Klitschkos are in a league of their own. But I think Samuel Peter has a great chance against anyone else in the heavyweight division.”

He may be right. Peter, with the exception of his fight with Eddie Chambers, does well against the other heavyweights in the division. Peter didn’t put in a very good effort in his loss to Wladimir recently, and you can understand why Top Rank might have given up on him. However, there really wasn’t much Peter could do in that fight because he was so over-matched.

But Peter would do well against the likes of Haye, Adamek or Arreola if he can land his shots. At 6’2”, Peter is roughly the same size as the other top heavyweights in the division and he hits a lot harder than most of them.

If Peter can get a fight with Haye, which I highly doubt, I can see him beating him and proving Top Rank wrong. Haye is very selective of his opponents and likely would never choose to fight Peter unless he absolutely had to.