By William Mackay: According to the BBC, IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson and his team will be making their decision today as to whether they will be giving Amir Khan (26-2, 28 KO’s) an immediate rematch or not.

They reportedly promised to make the decision on Thursday whether to accept the 50-50 offer made by Khan and his promoter from Golden Boy. If the answer is yes to a rematch, then the rematch will take place on May 19th at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. This is a venue that was picked out by Golden Boy and it will no doubt help Khan, as there is a large Pakistani community in the Los Angeles to which Khan can take advantage of.

Although technically this would be considered a neutral venue, you can hardly call it neutral because Peterson’s fan base is in Washington, DC, where Khan would be able to count on the support of the huge Pakistani population in LA to see his fight. Team Peterson perhaps isn’t aware of that and they should perhaps think twice before agreeing to the fight taking place in that city if they do agree on the rematch.

Peterson will likely accept the offer because he probably won’t get any others from other big named opponents. What this rematch could come down to is whether the referee will permit Khan to use techniques such as shoving, pulling down on the head and headlocks to make up for his lack of an inside game. Khan doesn’t know how to fight on the inside, so uses the shoving, and other assorted “Techniques” to make up for it. What we’re looking at here are fouls when done excessively the way Khan was using them, but if a referee allows Khan free reign in using these techniques, then Peterson will probably lose.

Peterson defeated Khan by a 12 round split decision on December 10th in Washington, DC in a close fight. Khan controlled the fight early on, getting credit for a knockdown in the 1st round that was later shown to be a push from Khan’s elbow. The fight changed in the 4th, as Peterson began to punish Khan on the inside. Khan didn’t have the inside skills to fight Peterson, so he began to run, shove and grab Peterson by the head and pull him down repeatedly.

Khan was eventually docked a point for the shoving in the 7th but failed to stop using this foul in the following rounds. The referee finally tired of Khan’s constant shoving and took another point off in the 12th. That point deduction was a costly one for Khan, as it turned out to the difference in the fight. But Khan clearly did lose the fight based on his inability to fight on the inside, so it wasn’t a big deal that the referee took a couple of points off.