On Saturday night, Lamont Peterson captured the WBA and IBF versions of the junior welterweight titles by dethroning Amir ?King? Khan in a thrilling back-and-forth battle at the D.C. Convention Center in the nation?s capital. It was a watershed victory not only for Peterson, whose tale of enduring homelessness as a child alongside his brother, Anthony, is well-known, but also for the man who has help guide their lives in and out of the ring. For trainer/manager Barry Hunter, this is his first world title.
With a faded voice, Hunter told Maxboxing on Sunday afternoon, ?It?s a great moment for me. It?s like this is the Super Bowl of our sport and I?ve been coaching for 32 years and to take one from a pup all the way up to a world championship, not only get him there but win it- and we?ve been there more than once- I can?t describe it.?
Hunter and his pupils have been at the doorstep before but like the Buffalo Bills of the 1990s, they could never win the big one. Yeah, he was starting to feel a bit like Marv Levy, admitting, ?Had I not won that one, I would have felt just like Marv because, keep in mind, I?ve been there with Sharmba Mitchell. I?ve been there with Tony Thompson. I?ve been there with Lamont and I?ve been on the cusp of it with Anthony. So yeah, it started to feel like, ?God, what more do you want from me? What is it that I?m not doing right?? So I had to go back, look at myself first, self-evaluate myself first. I had to make sure it wasn?t me giving the guys wrong instructions, teaching them wrong and then I had to turn around and look at my surroundings and when I weighed the two, my surroundings overweighed myself. And I started getting rid of things that I didn?t no longer need.?
Hunter for years has been the head of Head Bangers Boxing Team (http://www.boxinggyms.com/headbangers.htm), where, for years, he has trained local youth around the D.C. area. There are men like Hunter all over inner cities across the country who put in their time and accumulate sweat equity, not necessarily to produce the best pound-for-pound boxers on the planet but to provide a male influence that is so often missing in this socioeconomic climate. But Hunter is also a professional trainer, one of many who are often defined by their wins and losses and how many champions they help mold.
When asked if this victory validated him in any way, Hunter answered, ?In the eyes of many fans of professional boxing but in my case it?s simply this: I never, ever, ever got into this thing for financial gain. It was always about helping some youngsters. It was just a tool for me to go out and resurrect some of these young people and it was just my way of giving back for some of the mistakes that I made years ago. It just took a life of its own. God saw fit to use me as his vessel and help get these kids and he gave me the tools to take them even further.?
Coming into Saturday night, Peterson was a 10-1 underdog. Hunter told anyone who would listen that his charge had overcome much steeper odds in just coming off the streets and becoming a productive citizen. The night started off with Peterson getting knocked down and seemingly overwhelmed by Khan?s speed. Early on, Peterson tried timing Khan with left hooks (even landing one when he was sent to the canvas) but soon, he was playing the role of aggressor and started attacking Khan?s long torso.
?We were going to box Amir early on, which Lamont can do, and bring him war under the sky,? explained Hunter, ?but somewhere in that fight, he started to abandon his jab and it was d?j? vu of the [Timothy] Bradley fight and so when he came back to the corner and I saw that he was in that mode, instantly, I made the adjustment. I told him that Amir, his offense is his defense. He?s very, very good throwing volumes of punches coming forward but he has to separate from you before he can do that. If you get within two feet or a foot of him, he has difficultly. He?ll fight to get back on the outside. He has deficiencies on his inside craft and circle-motion. He?s great at that, beautiful foot movement, but he has problems going backwards. So all these things we exploited and Lamont forced him into a fight he was not comfortable with. He?s not used to not being in control, so we had to put doubt in his mind and we did that.?
From the outside, Khan was able to control the action; however, when the fight went into a phone booth, he was raked by hard left hooks and uppercuts on the inside. Peterson attacked the body with such ferocity and acumen that he should be named an honorary Mexican.
But coming down the stretch, this was anyone?s fight and in the past, Peterson never found another gear allowing him to grab that defining victory when the stakes were the highest. Would he be this generation?s Oba Carr, a highly skilled boxer, who could never quite get the brass ring? On this night, Hunter, doing his best Knute Rockne, simply would not let his man capitulate. He went to the whip and Willie Shoemaker couldn?t have done a better job of jockeying.
?If you look at the fight, I don?t know what round it was but I remember distinctly throwing his head back,? Hunter recalled. ?He had his head down and it?s a cardinal sin in the gym. They?ve been reared up from being babies to show no weakness, at no time. He dropped his head so that let me know that there was an inner doubt in him. So it was my job at that point in time to let him know, ?In your mind, you are weak. You?ve trained for this fight all your life- not just three months. This started a long time ago, so therefore, you have to remind yourself, ?What drove me to this point? Am I just satisfied with just getting here and not winning the whole damn thing???
?So I had to put that back in him and he responded.?
As the final bell sounded, Hunter knew this was a close fight that could go either way.
?I?ve said it before and I?ve said it since then; I asked [Lamont] to give me three minutes in the last round. I need three minutes because I knew the fight was very, very close. Hey, the man was champion and I?m with the old mentality that you have to defeat him. You have to take it to him. So I knew in my eyes that this fight could?ve been either way by one point or a draw and I don?t think anybody should have a problem with it, one way or the other.?
With some assistance from referee Joe Cooper (who docked Khan twice for pushing), Peterson was able to win a split decision by the scores of 113-112, twice, the third card going to Khan with a score of 115-110. This will forever be debated as a case of home cooking but regardless, this was a closely contested bout, fought at a high level. Further vindication for Hunter comes from his decision as a manager last year to eschew a $300,000 payday to face Khan in England. Instead, they bypassed the offer, took on Victor Cayo in an IBF eliminator this past summer and then faced Khan under these favorable conditions.
Patience is a virtue, as they say.
?What I do- and I always give God all the praise in the world for bringing me and Lamont and his brother this far- is based on the love of God and instinct and when they first called me about it, I knew it was more so a fight that they pretty much looked at Amir to win and I figured if we go over to the U.K. – and I know over there that the fans are rabid, they got some of the most dedicated fans on the planet- I figured if Lamont didn?t go over there and knock him out, then we would lose and that would really push us back seeing how we lost to Timothy Bradley. We never should have lost to him and the draw with Victor Ortiz. So I told Lamont, ?This don?t feel right, brother. Of course, I want your opinion but in my eyes, it?s not right. You?re better than that.? And they?ve always been taught not to be a prostitute for money because once you compromise that, your integrity, you?ll have nothing left.
?So [Lamont] turned around; he thought about it. He said the same thing I said, ?Listen, I would fight him if it were for no purse. I would fight him for free but I walk up them stairs like every other fighter and there?s no guarantee I?m going to walk out after we start the fight. So why is it that he should get this enormous amount of money and you don?t want to pay me nothing?? He said, ?I would fight if you want me to but I wouldn?t feel comfortable with it.? I said, ?Brilliant choice.??
So the question now is will we see Peterson-Khan II? According to Hunter, there is no rematch clause.
?The official statement from the Peterson side is simply this: how many young fighters you know in Lamont?s position have fought Timothy Bradley, have fought Victor Ortiz, have fought Victor Cayo and then turn around and fight Amir Khan? Lamont?s never had an easy career. Now, we could?ve taken the path of some of the other fighters coming to get a title, old fighters that?s going out the door or fighters that really shouldn?t be licensed and get these guys titles. But, nah, we lay our heart on the line; we went out there and we fought. So now I think it?s time for us to think about Lamont?s future as far as his daughter is concerned, Lamont?s future as far as himself and his health. It?s a business. Now, we gotta start looking at it that way.?
While many fans (and Khan and Golden Boy) may clamor for an immediate return bout, Peterson and his team will explore all their possibilities. ?We?re going to let this simmer a little bit, look at other options,? said Hunter, who basically lost his voice on Saturday night. ?Yeah,? said Hunter, with a fatigued laugh, ?I told him, ?I can?t fight this man for you. If I could, I would but I can fight with you inside the ring, me on the outside and we are in tune with one another. We?re damn near unbeatable.??
Hunter spent much of the night at the local hospital with his fighter. He says it still hasn?t sunk in what has taken place. You could hear the satisfaction and weariness in his fading voice but come Monday, he?ll be back at the Joey Evans Gym (part of the D.C. Department of Recreation, where the Head Bangers Boxing Team is situated). It?s not just what he does; it?s who he is.
?Believe it or not; it?s a true story. It?s kinda sad, actually. I took my family to Florida one time in the 18 years that I?ve been coaching these boys- one vacation.?
NOT A CON
It was interesting to hear HBO?s Max Kellerman state that Khan agreed to face Peterson in his hometown out of some adventurous ?take-on-all-comers? spirit when, in reality, the reason why this fight took place in Washington D.C. is that Khan needed the host hotel (the Mandalay Bay) to coax its players with free tickets and rooms to attend his last two Las Vegas outings against Marcos Maidana and Zab Judah. That and the fact they probably underestimated the threat Peterson was (I still can?t believe he was such a heavy ?dog coming in). That said, Golden Boy Promotions put this card- also featuring heavyweight local Seth Mitchell- where it belonged. If this fight was going to be staged in the United States, then Peterson?s hometown was the only place that would draw the numbers it did (approximately 9,000).
I?ve believed for awhile that Khan?s invasion of the States was a bit premature. Unlike his predecessors like Naseem Hamed, Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe, he didn?t allow Frank Warren to fully build him into bona fide attraction in England. Therefore, when Khan fights in the States, a horde of fans doesn?t follow him. He rolled the dice this weekend and came up snake-eyes. Honestly, being in fights of this nature don?t really hurt his standing all that much. For two straight Decembers, we have seen him involved in ?Fight of the Year?-type contests. There is always a market for that in boxing (on any continent).
For now, all this talk of Amir Khan facing Floyd Mayweather can be shelved (and it was ridiculously premature to begin with). Khan is what he is, a physically talented boxer who still fights like an amateur, still has some technical flaws (such as over-striding when he punches) and is impotent on the inside where he was mugged by Peterson. His fans claim Peterson was leading with his head. The rest of the boxing world calls it ?in-fighting.? Bottom line, when you attack the body, your head will be in close proximity to your opponent?s. All night, Khan just kept looking at referee Joe Cooper (more on him later) for help instead of throwing uppercuts in self-defense.
This was a close fight. I think both men made a strong case for winning it but while Khan threw a lot of flashy, fast combinations, you can make an argument that the harder, cleaner, more professional punches (especially to the body) were landed by Peterson.
HANGING WITH MR. COOPER
Like most everyone else, I found Joe Cooper as Peterson-Khan?s third man to have been a rather dubious choice, given the magnitude of the event in D.C. (which hadn?t had a major fight in town in years). And while Cooper may have gone with the letter of the law in penalizing Khan twice for pushing off on Peterson, I just question if both deductions were really warranted in a fight of that magnitude. In my opinion, I don?t think Peterson was knocked down in the first. Overall, I found Cooper to be quite intrusive and his ring mechanics poor (he seemed to get in the way an awful lot).
While the concept of hometown-themed fights is sound and proven to be successful, when the perception (or perhaps the reality) is that the visiting fighters will get jobbed by the officials, it makes these types of events more difficult to secure.
D.C.
While this promotion was a commercial success and everyone I spoke to who attended told me they loved the atmosphere, the actual staging of this card left a lot to be desired. This is just one correspondence I got from someone who attended Peterson-Khan this weekend:
As a DC resident and a hardcore boxing fan, I was very excited to see that championship-level boxing was coming to my hometown for the first time in many years. In fact, I chose not to attend Cotto-Margarito II in New York last week, specifically because I felt it was more important to put my money towards the local show in a city that doesn?t get big fights on a regular basis. My hope was that if DC-area boxing fans showed up in strong numbers, DC would be seem by promoters as a legit candidate for more big fights in the near future. I was impressed that Golden Boy took the initiative to stage the fight in DC instead of taking the often-uninspired approach of dumping fights in the standard casino venues in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Connecticut, etc. And Golden Boy was rewarded for their decision, because the Convention Center was packed last night with true boxing fans. Just by listening to the conversations that people were having, it was obvious that many of the 9,000+ paying customers were loyal boxing fans who knew what they were talking about. When you hear fans in the crowd talking about Peterson?s strategy against Bradley, or Khan?s performance against McCloskey, you know it?s a knowledgeable boxing crowd and not a bunch of people just looking to be seen on a Saturday night. The arena was packed well before the HBO telecast began.
However, while it was great for Golden Boy and HBO to bring this fight to DC, their actual running of the event was far from fan-friendly. On the day tickets went on sale, certain mid-level seating sections were mysteriously unavailable online, and a seating map was nowhere to be found. Then, as you?ve already heard by now, when the crowd filed in last night, many were surprised to see that all 9,000+ seats were laid out on a flat convention hall floor. This resulted in the vast majority of the fans (including myself, the owner of a $50 seat) with little-to-no ability to see the ring. “Watching” the fight meant staring at a TV screen suspended above the ring. To add insult to injury, when my friend and I went to purchase a beer before the Mitchell-Ibragimov fight at a concession stand on the convention hall floor, we were told that beer/liquor sales were being cut off, because “HBO is about to turn its cameras on, and they don?t want to see people in the background purchasing alcohol.” We tried a second concession stand and got the same answer. I have no idea if this company-line excuse was HBO?s fault, Golden Boy?s, or the venue?s, but it?s ridiculous nonetheless. It?s one thing to be forced to watch a fight on a TV screen because the ticket you purchased has no sight lines, but it?s even worse when you?re told you can?t even enjoy a cold beverage while doing so. I doubt the average HBO Boxing viewer at 11:30 pm on a Saturday night is going to be offended by the sight of someone purchasing a drink in the background of a camera shot. And after re-watching the fight on DVR at home, not once did the cameras veer anywhere remotely in the direction of the area where these alcohol sales would have been occurring.
Part of the allure of attending a big fight in a non-casino venue is the idea that you can enjoy a fight in-person without having to spend an arm and a leg to do so. Yet last night, the only way to buy yourself an actual view of the ring was to spend $150 or more for the first several rows of seats. The average paying customer, despite being in the arena, was “shut out” from the event from a true viewing perspective. So while staging the fight in DC seemed to be a rare occurrence where the average boxing fan would be valued, the handling of the event ended up being business as usual.
Brian Washington DC Twitter: @bpgriffith
Brian, thanks for the feedback. It?s important that paying customers like you are heard. I hope the powers that be read this and take it to heart. But that part about HBO and the beer embargo had me laughing. That seems like something they just made up on the fly as the kegs were are empty. I mean, really, the HBO audience can?t bear the sight of patrons getting themselves a Budweiser, that somehow, that?s a visual that simply can?t be seen on the network?
Uh, have you seen this season of ?Boardwalk Empire??
But seriously, let?s hope these are just rookie mistakes and as Peterson and other future D.C. standouts headline cards in your neighborhood, let?s also hope these issues become a thing of the past.
In other words, make sure the Verizon Center is reserved.
FINAL FLURRIES
Haven?t seen it yet but big win for Brian Viloria versus Giovani Segura this weekend in the Philippines. Love to see Viloria face Roman Gonzalez next year…Seth Mitchell has a made a lot of progress but I think there is still a ways to go before proclaiming him the ?Great American Hope?…So I guess the David Lemieux bandwagon is completely empty?…If you didn?t notice, the other Donaire, Glenn, made his return to the ring this Friday night, stopping Alex Sanchez on Telemundo…Tebow Time is a lot like an episode of ?Three?s Company,? so bad yet so good and even though you know the ending, you just have to watch regardless…Can you believe a QB from Baylor won the Heisman Trophy?…I know the Packers are a machine but losing Greg Jennings would be huge…Based on the injuries they suffered, I think Gary Kubiak has done a great job in guiding the Texans this season…?The Big Bang Theory? remains a top-notch show…OK, will the Lakers make some trades or not? I?m getting restless?…
