By Edward Chaykovsky
In order to reclaim his world titles, two-division former champion Amir Khan would have accepted a fight with Lamont Peterson for nothing, says the British superstar. Last December, Peterson won a twelve round controversial split decision to lift the belts from Khan. On May 19th at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, they clash for a second time with Khan hungry to settle the score between them and recapture the WBA/IBF junior welterweight titles.
Peterson is receiving the biggest payday of his career, well over a $1 million dollar purse and a 50-50 split on the worldwide revenue. The negotiations were tough, and at one point Khan was ready to leave the rematch behind and make a move to the welterweight division.
"Fair play to Peterson's camp, they were so so tough in negotiations. So tough in fact that we all thought they did not want the bout. We'd heard that Peterson's team thought they could negotiate a path towards fighting either Floyd Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao but they were already signed up to fight others," Khan told Pat Sheehan of The Sun.
"They squeezed every last dollar out of us but my fight with Peterson was off when the final deadline passed. It was in the dustbin and I was looking to move up a division. But all of a sudden they were begging us to put the fight on. The final decision was down to me and I said 'Let's go with it' because I wanted so badly to put the record straight. That's why Peterson ended up with such a fantastic deal. I was willing to jump in there and fight for nothing just to get them titles back. Everybody knows who won the first fight."
