By William Mackay: Amir Khan is frustrated that he can’t get a rematch with IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson and is under the impression that Peterson is afraid of him because of his reluctance to sign on for an immediate rematch.

In an interview at Ary News, Khan said “Peterson is afraid. If the rematch happens, I will definitely knock him out to prove to fans that I deserved the win the first time we fought. The whole world knows I won. We are praying for the rematch. The judges didn’t give me a fair chance…I go to the gym, 1 till 6, 6 hours training.”

That was actually a kind of funny interview. How Khan can make anything different in a rematch is beyond me. Peterson had no problems taking Khan’s shots to get to him to land his power punches. It was Khan that was in the full panic mode and running and fouling like mad from the 5th round on. Peterson had zero problems handling Khan’s punches, and if anything, it was Khan who was the one troubled from heavy shots.

Peterson kind of exposed Khan for not being a big puncher and it’s strange that Khan is still talking as if he’s a slugger when he couldn’t even take this guy out. Khan had problems with Peterson’s body attack especially in the later rounds when Khan increased his fouling to another level by pushing and pulling down on Peterson’s head constantly. Khan couldn’t deal with Peterson’s inside game and had to resort to fouling by pushing off and grabbing his head just to survive.

In a rematch, Khan will have to come up with some different answers than that if he wants to keep from potentially losing more points. I suppose a referee can be dug up that will look the other way when Khan fouls, but boxing fans at home won’t be looking away and it’s going to really taint any of Khan’s wins. Unless his opponents are willing to foul right along with him by shoving him and yanking down on his neck all night long, Khan is going to look like a dirty fighter again. As it is, he just seems like a poor sport for not accepting that he got beat by Peterson.

At the end of the day, Peterson will likely give Khan a rematch but Amir needs to calm down and stop sounding so bitter about being schooled. The idea is that Khan is supposed to learn from his defeats and fix what went wrong. But what he’s doing is showing classic signs of denial. He doesn’t want to face the truth that he performed badly and won’t acknowledge what he did wrong in the fight. How can he learn from it when he sees it as being the fault of the referee and judges for his loss instead of himself. Freddie Roach must really have his hands full with Khan. When you got a fighter that is resistant t acknowledging the mistakes they made, then they’re going to be limited in how much they can improve.