By William Mackay: The December 10th fight between IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (26-1, 18 KO’s) and challenger Lamont Peterson (29-1-1, 15 KO’s) will be taking place at the Washington DC Convention Center. This will be Khan’s last fight at light welterweight (140 lbs) before he moves up next year to try and get a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr., who Khan talks about night and day.

However, the 27-year-old Peterson plans on getting in the way of Khan’s dream of a Mayweather fight by beating Khan on December 10th. Once Khan is beaten again his dream of a Mayweather fight will effectively be ended. Mayweather won’t waste his time fighting Khan at that point because he’s already been exposed by Breidis Prescott in a 1st round knockout loss.

Speaking with the BBC Sport, Khan said “I know Lamont is a strong contender but it doesn’t matter that I’m fighting him in his back yard. I’m coming as a champion and I will leave as a champion. I always said I wanted to be active and a true world champion and I will prove it on December 10th.”

Peterson isn’t a big puncher, and that should help Khan’s chances in this fight because he has problems against fighters with power. However, Peterson has some decent power and if he can stay in there long enough to land some of his slapping punches, he could stun Khan and take him out. He just needs to make sure that Khan doesn’t pull his head down like he did in his fights against Marcos Maidana and Zab Judah.

Peterson would do well to tip off the referee before the fight to watch for Khan’s head pulling routine because it clearly gives him an advantage with that MMA type move. In finishing off Judah in his last fight, Khan grabbed Judah around the head with his left left arm and pulled down on his head while at the same time landing a right to the belt line. The punch was borderline but the pulling down of the head with his left was clearly a dirty move by Khan.

Khan isn’t interested in fighting Maidana and Prescott again. He’s also not interested in fighting the hard hitting Lucas Matthysse.