Khan vs. Peterson: Couldn’t a better opponent be found for Amir than this?

By Boxing News - 01/10/2011 - Comments

Image: Khan vs. Peterson: Couldn't a better opponent be found for Amir than this?By Dan Ambrose: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan’s next opponent is likely to be #6 WBA ranked Lamont Peterson (28-1-1, 14 KO’s), a fighter that hits about as hard as Paulie Malignaggi and is only slightly taller. Peterson, 26, is a controversial choice for Khan because Peterson failed to establish himself as the winner in his last fight against Victor Ortiz in December and was soundly beaten in one of the most lopsided 12 round decisions that you’re ever going to see against Timothy Bradley only a couple of fights ago in 2009.

For Americans that saw the Peterson-Ortiz fight, few of them saw Peterson as the winner. Indeed, Peterson appeared to lose by a significant margin, but two of the judges scored it even while the third actually thought Peterson won despite the fact that he was dropped twice in the fight and lost the majority of the exchanges in the remaining rounds.

Peterson was bloody and battered in that fight and looked like hell by the end of it. This is supposed to be a tune-up fight for Khan, but you’d like to see someone like Khan, a champion, picking out fighters that are at least on a mini winning streak if not winning most of their fights coming into the bout instead of someone that got what appeared to be a gift draw in their last fight and took punishment. But Peterson has no power and it looks like that could be the deciding factor for him getting the call for the fight. Khan could have taken on other contenders in the division like Victor Cayo, Breidis Prescott and Alberto Mosquera, but those guys punch a lot harder than Peterson and would have a chance to knock Khan out.



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