By Scott Gilfoid: While former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan and his promoters from Golden Boy Promotions are livid about the job that Washington, DC based referee Joe Cooper did in taking two points away from Khan in his loss to Lamont Peterson last Saturday night, WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch reportedly thinks Cooper did a pretty swell job refereeing the fight.

With the exception of the blown call in the 1st round where Khan shoved Peterson to the canvas and was given credit for a knockdown, Froch thought the referee Cooper did an excellent job of controlling the fight. Froch points out that Cooper only took two points away from Khan for pushing off and Khan got away with a lot more than just pushing off in the fight, as he constantly was grabbing Peterson around the back of his head and pulling him down.

Froch noted that from Khan. Froch also didn’t buy Khan’s excuse about Peterson coming in low and that was why Khan said he had to grab him around the head. Froch said that it was Khan that was pulling down on Peterson’s head. Froch is right.

If you look at the fight again, Peterson was at eye to eye level with Khan in close, but Khan would frequently grab him around the head and crank down on Peterson’s head to the point where Khan’s head would end up resting on Peterson’s back. Cooper never took points off for this foul, although he did tell Khan to stop doing it from time to time.

Khan believes he was treated unfairly by the referee for the point deductions and feels he should have been allowed to push off without losing points. Khan thinks the referee had a bias for taking off the points. What Khan fails to see is that he made no adjustments to the referee after he was warned repeatedly and after he lost the initial point for shoving Peterson in the 7th. A lot of fighters would have backed off and stopped fouling when they were warned or had a point taken off. But Khan continued to push off on Peterson until he was eventually docked another point for pushing off in the 12th. And incredibly, Khan still continued to push off even after having had two points taken off. Khan just couldn’t or wouldn’t for some peculiar reason follow the instructions from the referee. He seemed oblivious to what was being told to him by Cooper.