By William Mackay: Number #1 ranked IBF light welterweight contender Lamont Peterson isn’t going to try and match the hand speed of IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan in their fight on December 10th.

Instead of wasting his time trying to compete against Khan’s superior speed, Peterson says he’s going to use timing to get his shots in against the blazing fast Khan.

Peterson told Yahoo Sports News “I’m a timing type of fighter. He [Khan] throws a lot of punches and he throws them in bunches. He’s fast but I’m fast too. And timing beats speed every time. Sometimes you can go too fast. Timing is everything.”

Peterson is right. Having great hand speed doesn’t mean a thing if you’re fighting a fighter with excellent timing like Peterson, because if he can time Khan in between his shots, he’ll be able to land his shots and possibly hurt Khan. We saw Marcos Maidana and Breidis Prescott both time Khan and land big bombs that hurt him.

It should be even easier for Peterson, because he’s a lot faster than Maidana and Prescott. He’s also got sneaky power that he can surprise his opponents with when he catches them unaware. If Khan doesn’t see Peterson’s shots coming because of being too busy throwing his shot shots, Peterson could hurt Khan and score a knockout.

It doesn’t take much to hurt Khan, and he’s been put in soft since the Maidana fight. Peterson is a big step up from the past his prime Zab Judah and the slow as molasses Paul McCloskey, the last two fighters that Khan fought.