(In the photo you can see Khan getting away with one of his usual illegal tactics, the old pulling down on the back of his opponent’s head while in close) By Scott Gilfoid: As I pointed out in the past, I knew IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan’s tendency to foul without abandon would catch up to him and cost him points and sure enough that’s exactly what happened on Saturday night when Khan lost points on two critical junctures in the fight for shoving challenger Lamont Peterson when he was trying to work in close.

As it turned out, the point deductions were just enough assistance for Peterson for him to win by a 12 round split decision at the Convention center in Washington, DC. The final judges’ scores were 113-112 and 113-112 for Peterson, and 114-111 for Khan. Some boxing fans are critical of referee Joe Cooper for taking points away from Khan for the shoving, but what else could the referee do?

He warned Khan countless times to stop shoving and pushing down on the head of Peterson and when Khan failed to heed his instructions, the referee took the points off. The shoving that Khan was doing was really helping him at times keep Peterson from fighting on the inside and since shoving is not part of the sport, of course it should have been ruled a foul. If the only way that Khan can fight an inside pressure fighter is to shove him then he needs to either learn how to fight on the inside or lose points, which is what happened tonight.

The referee really made up for one of his blown calls when he took a point away the first time Khan shoved, because the referee totally blew it by ruling a 1st round split by Peterson as a knockdown. It was clearly a slip and Khan got the benefit of that. However, Khan really was fouling and stinking up the joint with his running. Khan tried to fight Peterson for the first four rounds but after taking punishment to the body in the 3rd and 4th, Khan started running like a mad man.

At the same time Khan pulled out his old ball of fouling tricks that he used in his fights against Marcos Maidana and Zab Judah and started fouling over and over again with shoving, pulling down on the heads and holding. But the running was even worse the fouling because Khan was literally running with his back turned. For a fighter that Golden Boy Promotions saw as a soon to be pound-for-pound #1 fighter in all of boxing, it was embarrassing. Khan showed to be the absolute opposite of a pound for pound star and don’t even mention ever putting him in with Floyd Mayweather Jr. It would be embarrassing,

In other action on the card:

Terron Grant KO 1 Dashawn Autry
Joshua Davis UD 4 Christopher Russell
Fernando Guerrero TKO 5 Robert Kliewer
Dusty Harrison TKO 1 Terrell Davis
Anthony Peterson UD 8 Daniel Attah
Jamie Kavanagh MD 6 Ramesis Gil
Seth Mitchell TKO 2 Timur Ibragimov