By Sean McDaniel: Former two division world champion Ricky Hatton was shocked at the news of IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson failing the drug test for performance enhancing drugs for his May 19th rematch with Amir Khan. Peterson reportedly tested positive for a synthetic testosterone from a test conducted by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA) last March and the results are only now being released.

Hatton said this on his twitter at the news: “Just landed back in Manchester to the news that Lamont Peterson has failed his drug test for the first Khan fight. Shocking. If you want to win a world title. The pride you feel when you know your the best man is unreal…What’s the point of winning when you know in the back of your mind your only the better man cuz you’ve taken something to boost your performance.”

In fairness to Peterson, we still don’t know whether the tests were somehow messed up, showing a false positive. When you have a positive result like this effecting a huge fight like the Khan-Peterson rematch, there needs to be a second testing agency that can check the authenticity of the first agency. It would be a mistake for the fight to get trashed because of a possible error.

The testing was done AFTER the Khan-Peterson first fight, not before like Hatton was mentioning.

The Khan-Peterson II fight is still on, according to Asif Vali, the business manager for Khan. The Nevada State Athletic Commission is expected to make a ruling on the test results later on today, and the Khan-Peterson rematch will either move forward from there or come to a grinding halt.