All in all, I kind of enjoyed it.
Even as Saturday night?s fight was progressing, this looked like Amir Khan?s most ?professional? opponent to date. What I mean by that is, he may not have been a good a ?technician? as Andriy Kotelnyk, or as big a puncher as Marcos Maidana, but he was the best all-around fighter he has yet faced. And this was a good fight, taking on a quality that perhaps some had not expected ? one where Peterson was the pursuer looking to land the big punches, while Khan was continually moving, holding off Peterson like a matador, and landing his share of shots along the way.
The punches Khan hit Peterson with were not without some pop, and I?d have to wonder about Peterson?s power, with all the clean shots he was nailing Khan with, unless I was going to give a lot of credit to Khan?s chin, which is another possibility.
This fight was a good example of why, even if I am scoring a fight, I don?t put too much weight on the scoring in my post-fight analysis. When someone with a professed opinion goes into a fight, he does so with some pre-conceptions, and those creep into the way he watches it. So some people ? including myself ? are going to see what they want to see. Some people wanted to see Khan as a guy who was commanding things about the ring, providing defense and landing more jabs and some clean punches, and being more active. I was seeing Peterson as the aggressor, making the fight happen, and Khan as someone who was doing his own version of the hit-and-run, trying whatever he could to avoid standing there and engaging. For either guy, I suppose you could make a case.
It seemed clear to me what the folks from HBO wanted to see. Sure, they?ll take the story of Peterson?s homelessness as a youngster; the despair he had to dig himself out of, and exploit it to a certain point, but Khan is the fighter they have the investment in. He?s the Olympic star, the international ?icon? (allow me to use that term loosely), and he opens up more doors in more places. That?s how you heard Khan being mentioned in association with big fights against big fighters, when he really hadn?t done a lot to get to that level.
