By William Mackay: Amir Khan is excited about the prospects of getting a rematch with IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson, and has reportedly offered him a new bigger financial deal and feels that the fight is almost there, according to Sky Sports News.
However, in the same interview, Khan then says he’s heard nothing from Peterson since the offer was made, so he doesn’t know still whether the fight will happen.
Khan told Sky Sports “We’re very close now…We’re literally now 99 per cent there. The contract has been signed from my side. I’ve sent them off to Lamont Peterson and his team. Hopefully he can sign it, then we can get the fight on…We sent them off a long time ago. I think the reason is because he knows he would get beaten…We’ve offered him a massive deal, but he’s not responded back.”
I think Khan needs to let his promoters do the talking for him because he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth. On one hand, he’s saying the fight is 99% done, but on the other he’s also saying he sent it off a long time ago and has been ignored.
I think Khan sees the fight being 99 percent made in his own head, but in reality it isn’t going to happen. Peterson has a better off for a fight against Juan Manuel Marquez, as well as an easy title-milking defense that he may get in between that fight. If Peterson beats Marquez, he’ll get a shot at the Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley winner. Peterson in theory could end up facing Pacquiao in November in a fight that could net him $5 million.
A rematch against Khan will likely bring Peterson a paycheck of a little over $1 million. It seems to me that the better deal by far is to take the Marquez fight in order to get the much bigger payday against Pacquiao.
Peterson would have a lot to worry about in a rematch with Khan, because it’s highly unlikely that the referee working the fight will do anything about Khan’s fouling techniques. It will be hard enough for Peterson to catch up to the constantly running Khan, but then to have to deal with getting shoved and then having his head pulled down constantly when he does catch, I think it will be very hard for Peterson to win that rematch.
If Khan is allowed to shove all night long whenever Peterson gets close, he probably won’t win. I think the chances are incredibly high that the referee that gets installed in the Khan-Peterson II rematch will be one of those types that let’s Khan do what he wants in terms of shoving and grabbing Peterson’s head.
We could see a referee that prevents Peterson from working on the inside, kind of like the referee that worked the Khan vs. Marcos Maidana fight. He kept breaking up the action on the inside when Khan was taking a real pounding. I could just see Peterson agreeing to a rematch with Khan, and then finding out that referee is working the fight.
If I’m Peterson, the only way I would fight Khan is a referee like Jay Nady or Joe Cooper was working it. Those guys won’t put up with shoving or the head grabbing technique that Khan uses to prevent Peterson from working on the inside.
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