By William Mackay: For Amir Khan (26-2, 18 KO’s) to have any chance of beating IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (30-1-1, 15 KO’s) next month on May 19th, Khan will have to be in tip top shape to go full 12 rounds of running.

Khan’s not going to be able to beat Peterson in a one on one fight by standing and trading. We already know that by seeing how inept Khan was each time he attempted to stand and trade with Peterson last December in Khan’s 12 round decision loss.

Khan has to run, and has to be in good enough shape to run for the full 12 rounds. Recently, Khan’s strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza left the Philippines where Khan and Manny Pacquiao are both training with trainer Freddie Roach in order for Ariza to come back to the United States to help out WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., who no doubt badly needs Ariza’s help to trim his weight down to within 20 pounds of the 160 pound weight. This could hurt Khan if his replacement conditioning coach isn’t able to drive him as hard as Ariza, because Khan has got to have stamina first and foremost in order to beat Peterson. Running is going to be a big part of Khan’s game on May 19th unfortunately. He’s already pretty much made that clear by his comments about wanting to be slicker in the rematch.

Besides Khan’s conditioning, he’ll also need a referee that will allow him to get away with some of his favorite moves – shoving, pulling down on his opponents’ head and putting them in headlocks. These three moves were used by Khan frequently in his loss to Peterson last December, but they also possibly kept him from getting knocked out, because Khan was able to shove Peterson when he would attempt to fight on the inside.

Shoving is a tool that some fighters use to get around learning how to fight on the inside. Instead of picking up the skills to fight better skilled opponents in close, they choose to shove them away. Given the uneven competency of the referees that permeate the sport right now, Khan is often able to get away with shoving, pulling down on the head and headlocks, when he really should have stopped using those fouls long ago by being penalized again and again throughout his career. If Khan had lost points for those kinds of fouls throughout his career, he likely wouldn’t have had to even worry about losing the two points by referee Joe Cooper in his last fight against Peterson last December.