By Scott Gilfoid: If you’ve watched Amir Khan’s fights against Marcos Maidana and Zab Judah previously, you’ll notice that Khan often fights dirty to get the upper hand in a situation and the referees pretty much let him get away with this every time without taking points off.

I’m worried that tonight Khan will pull out the old dirty tricks to get an extra edge against his opponent Lamont Peterson to get him through this tough fight.

Please, Khan, don’t take the fight into the gutter. If you don’t have the chin to beat Peterson fair and square, just take your loss like a man and accept it.

Here are some of the things that Khan likes to do that aren’t allowed:

. Shoving
. Holding
. Pulling down on his opponent’s head

Khan used a variation of all three of those tactics in his fight with Marcos Maidana last December and got away scot free without any points taken from him. Khan doesn’t have much of an inside game to speak of, so when Maidana was crowding him and trying to fight on the inside, Khan would often give him a big shove to push him to the outside. This obviously isn’t a legal tactic because it keeps the fighter with the better inside game from exposing the limited fighter, in this case Khan.

Of all these illegal moves, Khan seems to favor the pulling down on the back of his opponent’s head and then nailing them with his free hand. It’s called holding and hitting and it gives a fighter a big advantage. Khan does it very quickly because of his fast hands, but the referee has to see it happening because it’s so blatantly obvious. I just hope Khan doesn’t get away with this kind of tactic tonight.

I hope Khan doesn’t use this tactic but I think it’s almost a given that he’ll be wrapping one or both arms around the back of Peterson’s head at some point to pull his head forward so he can nail him when he’s vulnerable. If you look at how Khan finished off Zab Judah in their recent fight, it was the perfect example of Khan using this tactic. Khan cranked down on the back of Judah’s head with his left forearm and while holding Judah’s head in place, Khan nailed him with a right that landed on the beltline.

Is that legal? I think not. I don’t care much about the questionable low blow but what Khan did in cranking down on the back of Judah’s head and shoving down on it at the same time he’s nailing him, totally dirty. The thing is Khan didn’t need to do this because Judah was too feeble and past his prime to do anything anyway. He was well on his way to losing the fight without Khan fouling him.

I just hope the referee does his job tonight and disqualifies Khan if he starts with the fouling left and right.