There were many people with opinions about last Saturdays fight between Amir Khan and Lamont Peterson. The Amir Kahn supporters will tell you that if it were not for the two point deduction that Khan would have won. Regardless whether or not that is true the only fact worth noting is that Amir Khan picked up his second loss and Lamont Peterson picked up the biggest win of his career.
Golden Boy who promotes Khan, has filed a protest against the referee and Khan has stated that if it were not for the referee he would have won. I?m not so sure. I will argue that this maybe the biggest loss of his career. It may sound crazy but when he was knocked out by Breidis Prescott, Amir Khan had decided to work with Freddie Roach and he was supposedly much more technically sound. Over time working with Freddie Roach, Khan had scored the biggest win of his career when he stopped Judah. From there the plan was to have one fight then move up to welterweight and an eventual showdown with Floyd Mayweather.
Having worked with Roach in his losing effort on Saturday we learned a lot about the things Khan could not seemingly do against Peterson. The first being that he has no clue how to fight on the inside. The second is after exchanging with Peterson for a couple of rounds Khan had lost a lot of steam on his punches mainly due to the excellent body work of Peterson. The other thing is that whenever there would be exchanges Khan would use his footwork around the ring as opposed to blocking punches that was his main method for protecting himself. Not a bad thing but when you are a world class athlete in boxing you should be able to hurt Peterson. He did not at all during the fight.
What makes this troubling for a fighter like Khan is that he himself must know that in order for him to move forward he must make some significant changes. There were some signs in the Maidana fight that going to the body of Khan would give some success for his future opponents. But we did not know that Khan had such glaring holes in his game. I?m not trying to knock Khan here, he is one of the best young talents in the sport but on Saturday he was not just physically beaten but mentally. Let?s luck at the pros and Khan?s for boxing on Saturday.
Pros: 1.A good young fighter like Lamont Peterson was awarded a victory over Khan.2. Amir Khan and Lamont Peterson gave us the boxing fans a good fight. 3. The boxing world loves underdogs and Lamont Peterson is a Cinderella story, Hollywood could not script a better underdog story.4.There will be a rematch and if it?s anything like the first fight this promises to be a good rivalry.
Cons: 1.Amir Khan not taking his loss like a man and is complaining about a hometown decision and the point deductions. 2. Golden Boy trying to get the loss off of Khans record. 3. I did not see Golden Boy or Khan complaining when he was awarded a knockdown against Peterson. 4. With Pacquiao and Mayweather getting older, boxing needs a star and Khan dropped the ball. It might not be a good thing for boxing or Golden Boy having Khan lose.
