Holt-Peterson: Lamont in a must win fight on February 22nd in Washington, DC

By Boxing News - 01/29/2013 - Comments

peterson432By Allan Fox: IBF light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (30-1-1, 15 KO’s) recently signed a contract with Golden Boy Promotions to put himself in position to get important big money fights against the likes of Lucas Matthysse, Danny Garcia and Amir Khan, the big three in the light welterweight division.

For the 31-year-old Peterson to take advantage of his new status as a Golden Boy fighter and to get those important fights, he’s going to have to get past former WBO light welterweight champion Kendall Holt (28-5, 16 KO’s) next month on February 22nd in their fight at the DC Armory in Washington, DC.

Peterson might not be the same fighter that beat former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan in his last fight in December of 2011 because over a year has gone by since that fight. Peterson was in the process of getting ready for a rematch with Khan early last year when Peterson came up positive for synthetic testosterone.

It was then discovered that Peterson had been using the banned drug under the guidance of a medical doctor to treat his abnormally low testosterone. It’s highly unlikely that Peterson is still using the substance, so you have to wonder how Peterson will look and fight with the time off.

There are a lot of unknowns going into this fight, and it’s impossible to predict how Peterson will perform under this situation. For all we know, Peterson could come out weak and rusty and end up losing to Holt.

This is going to be a really tough fight for Peterson because Holt is both the faster and stronger fighter of the two. Peterson and Holt are both the same age, so Peterson won’t have that going for him in this fight. Holt has struggled, however, in the last four years in losing to Timothy Bradley, Kaizer Mabuza and Danny Garcia, but he fought Garcia and Bradley ever tough in losing those fights.

The loss to Mabuza was more of a case of Holt getting cut early in the fight and then not being able to fight through the blood.

If Peterson loses to Holt then he can pretty much forget about fighting Matthysse, Khan and Garcia in the near future. I still think he’ll get fights with one or more of them in time just by virtue of him being in the same stable as them, but no way will Golden Boy reward him for losing by putting him in with their young stars at 140. Peterson would have to redeem himself first and prove himself worthy.



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