"Lamont Peterson, Anthony Peterson - they were homeless - they're great guys at heart and they told me a lot about the sport. Them, Mayweather and Adrien Broner are always my top fighters,” Davis told The Sun’s Jamie Gordon in 2017 prior to his first world title defense against Liam Walsh. 

A year earlier, Lamont had been in the locker room with him prior to Davis’ national television breakout performance on SpikeTV. Peterson was the big star then, headlining on every major platform, making seven figures, while Davis was the chosen one under the learning tree of Peterson, Mayweather and more. 

In 2023, Davis is one of the sport’s biggest draws, able to use his influence to help his friends in the sport and more specifically, give them positions on his card. With his bout against Hector Luis Garcia being staged in his stomping grounds of the DMV, in Washington specifically, Davis reportedly wanted the Peterson brothers on the show alongside him. Anthony’s scheduled bout fell through, but Lamont’s six-rounder against Ogundo remained on the slate. 

“Coming back to DC, I had to make sure that my guys, you know, people that paved the way for me were on the card,” Davis said at the pre-fight press conference last week. “I had to put the word in for (Anthony) and Lamont Peterson, they're definitely on the card for sure. I appreciate y'all.”

When asked about his return, Peterson seemed rather blasé. He’d been focusing primarily on an upcoming half marathon, and his attire suggested a change in athletic focus as well. As any distance runner knows, once you start wearing a Ciele running hat for fashion, you’re a serious runner and you want other people to be aware of it. At the press conference, Peterson was wearing his running cap. 

"At his request, I'm gonna go do it," Peterson told YSM Sports Media, with a smile on his face and a look in his eye that suggested someone he cared about had convinced him to do something he otherwise wasn’t going to do. When asked what people could expect out of him in the fight, he answered “just for me to put on a good show, and for me to enjoy boxing again.”

Peterson was one of the most well-liked fighters of his generation amongst fans, and as his relationship with Davis, Broner and others indicates, amongst his fellow fighters as well. Peterson helped teach fighters about nutrition, discipline, and was always a willing hand at HeadBangers Boxing Gym when it came to getting in the ring and teaching. His knockout loss to Lipinets was met with sadness in the boxing community, one of the career endings fans dread watching, especially to one of the good guys. 

A matchup against Ogundo, a 40-year old, 16-16 travelling opponent whose only win since 2017 had come over the 0-18 Paolo DeSouza, must have seemed like an easy enough way to erase those memories. A victory at home on a show headlined by the man whom he’d passed the torch to in his region, whom he’d helped mentor, before focusing on running 13.1 miles. 

Unfortunately, Peterson suffered the fate that former champions sometimes do when making comebacks years later—in his case almost four years later. Early in the night, with the seats mostly empty, the majority of the 19,731 that would ultimately fill the Capital One Arena not yet there, things went sideways. Ogundo hit Peterson with a flush, chopping right hand that dropped the former champion hard. Peterson got back to his feet, but was mostly out of sorts trying to stay upright as Ogundo battered him around the ring in the fourth round. 

The fight would end there, an upset so big that odds were not even offered on the fight.

Peterson is not the first, nor will he be the last, star to make their return and find disaster. Pernell Whitaker, Aaron Pryor, Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. and more all made returns after lengthy layoffs and were stopped in fights that happened in relative obscurity. The silver lining is just that, that the fights happened outside of the mainstream gaze. There is cell phone footage of Peterson’s loss to Ogundo, but in all likelihood, the bulk of his fanbase from his prime did not see it and may never see it. The fight wasn’t heavily promoted by either event organizers, or frankly, Peterson himself, who didn’t post about the fight on his Instagram feed, suggesting that there may have been a little more to the nonchalance he displayed when asked about the fight directly. 

Perhaps Peterson knew what he did or didn’t have left in the tank, but felt his opponent was hapless enough and his world class talent from yesteryear was enough to get him through and make good on his promise to Tank. Maybe he had some fears and wanted to keep things quiet. Or maybe, he didn’t want to take any amount of the spotlight away from his successor, the little kid he and his brother had helped for so many years. 

It wasn’t the ending Peterson wanted, and certainly not the ending he deserved. But much of his career has expressly been about what’s best for other people—the fans, and his fellow fighters, those he cares about. Hours later, Davis stopped Garcia in eight rounds, which is as much a part of Peterson’s legacy as what he himself has done in the ring, the success of those he paved the way for. 

In his new life as a runner, Peterson knows that sometimes your job is to be the pacer, and at some point you have to step off the track and let the other runners go. 

Corey Erdman is a boxing writer and commentator based in Toronto, ON, Canada. Follow him on Twitter @corey_erdman