By William Mackay: Former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan gave a brief glimpse on Sky Sports Ringside on Thursday in how he intends on fighting IBF/WBA light welterweight champ Lamont Peterson in their rematch on May 19th at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Khan intends on trying to keep the fight on the outside as much as possible by hitting, moving and keeping Peterson away from the inside.

Khan said “Hit, move, keep your distance, that’s what we are going to be working on; I’m sure Freddie [Roach] has a strategy how to beat him…Maybe there will come a time in the fight we have to fight inside but mainly we want to be on the outside working long…He’ll [Peterson] probably want to stay close to me, working the inside for them looping shots, so we need to do is maybe work the angles.”

Khan also mentioned that when he does have to fight on the inside,
he’ll focus on throwing a lot more uppercuts this time around and he won’t just cover up like he was doing like last time. That could be a bad thing for Khan, because if he’s throwing punches, he’ll open up his midsection more to Peterson, who had no problems taking Khan’s punches and firing back his own.

It sounds great what Khan is talking about, but in reality I don’t know that he’s going to be able to throw punches with Peterson attacking his body. Khan seemed to be really bothered by Peterson’s body punching, and that was obviously one of the biggest reasons why he was on his bike moving so much in order to escape the constant pressure.

Khan says he won’t be pushing in the rematch because he doesn’t want to give the referee any excuse to take away points. Somehow, I find that hard to believe. I can’t see Khan not pushing because it’s so much part of his game. Khan is like a person addicted to smoking. They may say they won’t smoke, but once they’re under stress and they have that urge, you’ll see that cigarette in their mouth and them puffing away as usual.

Khan didn’t say anything about whether he would be refraining from pulling down on Peterson’s head, which was another fouling move that he used constantly in the Peterson fight last December. It’s the same thing with the shoving. Khan can say he won’t do it, but believe me, you’ll see Khan with both gloves yanking down on Peterson’s head all night long each time Peterson gets near him.

Even if the referee tells Khan to quit, he’ll probably keep doing it because he’s not someone that really learns in the ring like more intelligent fighters. I think with Khan you really have to shock him to get him to stop with a bad habit. If Roach was a good trainer, he would have some kind of pain mechanism he’d use during training camp to make Khan feel the consequences of using one of his fouling techniques.