By William Mackay: If you watched Amir Khan fall apart in his fight against Lamont Peterson last Saturday night the last thing you would think about is Khan deserving a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. next year. But that’s what Khan still has for one of his goals for 2012. He sees the Peterson loss nothing more than a small bump in the road and not something that will prevent him from getting the Mayweather fight next year.
I think Khan is kidding himself because Mayweather isn’t going to give him the time of day after this poor foul-plagued performance from Khan. He needs a lot of work before he’s deserving of a fight against Mayweather.
Khan told Sky Sports News “This has only put me back 3-6 months, because hopefully I’ll get the rematch with Peterson and beat him.”
I expect Khan to get his rematch because his promoter has offered Peterson $1 million to face him. Peterson won’t likely find that kind of money against anyone else, certainly not WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley. I’m sure Bob Arum could come up with that kind of bread if he wanted to, but he probably won’t do it.
I think even if Khan does beat Peterson in a rematch, he’ll still be a lot more than just three to six months off his schedule. Khan needs to really redeem himself in a major way by picking up wins over excellent opposition and look good in doing so. Trying to rush into a Mayweather fight from a rematch with Peterson is a pipe dream for Khan. He needs to put the pipe down and walk slowly away. He’s kidding himself. First of all, Khan needs to look impressive in beating Peterson, and I don’t know that Khan can even beat this guy.
But if Khan does, it’s probably going to be another ugly fight where Khan runs around the ring all night long, shoving and pulling down on Peterson’s head continuously. Khan will foul just as often with the same types of ugly fouls as last Saturday. The difference in the rematch will be that Khan will be able to get away with the fouling rather than lose points.
It’s almost a given that the referee in the rematch will be a laid back referee that will let Khan fight as he pleases and won’t take points away for Khan shoving Peterson around and putting him in head twisting positions the way he likes to do.
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