Peterson: I think I can knock Amir Khan out this time

By Boxing News - 02/26/2012 - Comments

Image: Peterson: I think I can knock Amir Khan out this timeBy William Mackay: IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (30-1-1, 15 KO’s) feels he now knows enough about the fighting style of Amir Khan (26-2, 18 KO’s) to knock him out in their rematch on May 19th at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The last time the two fighters fought each other last December, Peterson emerged the winner by a 12 round majority decision in a very close right that was filled with fouls from Khan.

Peterson said this on Saturday night during an interview by HBO: “I’m taking this rematch [with Khan] cause it’s what the fans want. None of his talk got to me. I just know nobody likes to lose, so you’re going to complain about things. But at the end of the day, I won the fight; I’m the champion. Fans want to see the fight again, so that’s what I’m going to do. [I’m going to work on] Little things like jabbing more, moving my head more; things like that. Definitely it will make the win come easier next time. I honestly think that I can knock him out this time. Oh yeah, I’m definitely in his head, because he’s worried about changing his game plan, working on new things; whereas I’m comfortable with what happened in the ring and I’m ready to go out there and do it again.”

Peterson wore Khan down with a vicious body attack on the inside that Khan was never able to adjust to. Khan tried running, but Peterson used a jogging tactic to quickly catch up to Khan every time and force him to fight in close. In response to this, Khan began more and more to shove Peterson away with both hands rather than in fighting or trying to run.

I guess Khan realized he couldn’t run and didn’t have the inside skills to mix it up with Peterson, so he resorted to shoving Peterson quite a bit. The shoving by Khan led to him being warned repeatedly by the referee and finally two points were taken off. This still didn’t stop Khan from shoving unfortunately; he just continued to shove until the fight ended.

Besides the shoving, Khan did a lot of pulling down on Peterson’s head in an effort to tie him up and prevent him from in fighting. A thing like that is okay if it’s a once in a while type of strategy, but Khan was using constantly, that and headlocks and shoving, when Peterson came in range trying to land his body shots on the inside. In hindsight, it’s a wonder that Khan was even allowed to go out there against an inside fighter like Peterson without any knowledge in how to fight on the inside.

What was Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach doing during training camp? He should have been working with Khan to develop some skills to use against an inside fighter like Peterson. As far as I can tell, Khan looked like he had been trained to only run and tie up to keep Peterson from fighting. That kind of thing will work temporary against an inside fighter, but you got to have more than that to beat them without taking a ton of punishment the way Khan did. Khan just looked like a like a fouling runner against Peterson, and it’s disappointing that he didn’t learn more than that from Roach.



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