By William Mackay: It looks as if Golden Boy Promotions, the promoters for Amir Khan (26-2, 18 KO’s), are looking at May 19th as the date for a potential rematch between Khan and Lamont Peterson (30-1-1, 15 KO’s). The CEO of Golden Boy, Richard Schaefer, wants the fight to take place on May 19th, not March 31st as was previously reported, and the venue is the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, according to boxing news from Dan Rafael of ESPN.

You have to wonder why Golden Boy would pick California of all areas instead of Las Vegas or New York for this fight. Why would Golden Boy want the fight in Calififornia rather than more lucrative cities like Vegas and New York? There must be some kind of advantage that they want to get for their cash cow fighter Amir Khan by offering to Peterson this state. A loss for Khan in the rematch will pretty much put the nail in the coffin of Khan becoming a future PPV star. Golden wants to make Khan into another Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. type money attraction. And for this to happen, he absolutely must beat Peterson in their rematch.

If I’m Peterson, this kind of thing would have me backing away and quick. If ‘m Peterson, I’d pick out Washington or maybe Las Vegas and go with that. I think we could see a referee being brought in that isn’t friendly to inside fighters like Peterson. We saw referee Joe Cortez get selected for Khan’s fight against Marcos Maidana last year, and Cortez had a reputation going into that fight with a lot of boxing fans as the guy that kept Ricky Hatton from working on the inside against Floyd Mayweather Jr.

It could be that by putting the fight there in California it will please Golden Boy by having the people they want overlooking this fight. They can’t afford to have Khan get beat again, and they’re convinced that the referee Joe Cooper working the Khan-Peterson fight last Saturday was directly responsible for Khan’s lost for taking two points away from Khan for two separate instances where Khan shoved Peterson. However, Cooper also did Khan and Golden Boy a huge favor, which they appear to be forgetting, by giving Khan credit for a 1st round knockdown of Peterson on a slip. If you take away the knockdown and the point deductions, Khan still had problems with Peterson.

Cooper wasn’t showing favoritism despite what some people thing. What he had in front of him was a fighter that was basically, using football terms, trying to run out the clock in the last two minutes by stalling. In the last round of the fight, Khan repeatedly reached out with either one hand or both hands, and shoved Peterson away to keep him from fighting on the inside. It was completely illegal and it was no longer boxing. Khan could have run, could have tried to tie him up in a clinch or could have attempted to fight Peterson. But instead, he was shoving him over and over again each time he got close leading up to the point deduction in that round.