By Scott Gilfoid: After narrowly losing a 12 round majority decision to Danny Garcia last May in a catch-weight fight at 143 pounds, former IBF light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (33-3-1, 17 KOs) will be trying his hand at welterweight (147) against 2008 Olympic light welterweight gold medalist Felix Diaz Jr. (17-0, 8 KOs) next month in a 12 round fight on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC from the EagleBank Arena at the George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
Peterson, 31, looked sensational in his last fight in moving up to welterweight to give Garcia all he could handle for 12 rounds. Peterson put on an excellent display of taking the fight to Garcia and punishing him with power shots to the body and head.
Peterson showed a lot of improvement with him coming in at a higher weight. Peterson looked like he was in the 160s for the fight against Garcia, and his size advantage proved to be difficult for him to handle. If Peterson had started attacking Garcia earlier in the fight, he would have likely won the fight easily.
“I’m very excited to be back in the ring, especially close to home in Virginia and fighting on NBC,” said Peterson. “I’m happy just to be doing what I love to do. I’ve been in the gym and I’ve stayed ready so I’m prepared to give the fans the kind of show they deserve.”
If Peterson is going to make it in the welterweight division, he’s going to need to defeat Diaz Jr. and make it look easy. The 5’5” Diaz clearly doesn’t have the size to fight at welterweight, as we’ve seen in a couple of his close call bouts against weak 2nd tier opposition. If Peterson struggles in this fight against Diaz, then that’ll be a bad sign for his future in the weight class.
In the co-feature bout, the talented super middleweight contender Andre Dirrell (24-2, 16 KOs) will be facing former light heavyweight title challenger Blake Caparello (21-1-1, 6 KOs) in what should be an exciting 10 round fight. Dirrell is coming off of a disappointing 12 round decision loss to James DeGale in a failed attempt to capture the vacant IBF super middleweight title.
Dirrell would have won the fight if he hadn’t gotten knocked down twice in the 2nd round, when he got sloppy. Dirrell dominated the fight after the knockdowns, but he ran out of gas after the 10th round. In looking at how smooth Dirrell’s physique was for the fight, he looked like he had come into the fight too big.
It’s unclear if Dirrell is struggling to make weight fir the 168lb division. If so, then he needs to think about moving up to light heavyweight. In the past, Dirrell would have dominated a fighter like DeGale and made easy work for him. But I think Dirrell struggled with making weight for the fight, and that likely hurt him when it came to having the energy that he previously had in his fights.
Dirrell wants a rematch against DeGale to show him that his win over him was just a fluke thing, but unfortunately for Dirrell, it’s going to take a while before Dirrell gets a rematch against him.
“My motivation to succeed only gets stronger with each fight,” said Dirrell. “I fight to win. All I want to see is a belt around my waist. Whatever it takes, whatever I have to do, it’ll get done. I will be a world champion! This fight is the next step.”
Dirrell needs to put together some wins if he wants to get back to the Number one position with the International Boxing Federation, because that’s the only way I see Dirrell getting another crack at the IBF title. DeGale and his promoter Eddie Hearn sure as heck isn’t going to give Dirrell a title shot in a voluntary defense. I don’t see that ever happening in this lifetime.
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