Lamont Peterson Will Kick Edwin Valero's Ass, Says Shaw

By Rick Reeno

Promoter Gary Shaw was very upset after reading BoxingScene.com's recent posting on a possible fight between Edwin Valero and Lamont Peterson. Two weeks back, Valero pulled out a dominating TKO win over Antonio DeMarco. Following that win, Valero announced his plan to move to the junior welterweight division. 

Valero's promoter, Top Rank CEO Bob Arum, reached out to Shaw for a possible meeting with WBO champion Timothy Bradley. Shaw spoke to Bradley's team and received their blessing to make the fight. He then spoke with Showtime and received their blessing to make the fight. After he lined everything up, Shaw says the negotiations went completely cold.

"I just read something that really bothers me. They [Top Rank] came up to me and said they wanted Valero. I agreed, I got Showtime to agree. Everyone wanted to go to Mexico and then Top Rank's phones went dead," Shaw told BoxingScene.com.

"If you are going to call out someone, be prepared to fight them. But to make someone go through all of the work, and then for everything to go dead, there is no excuse. And they had no excuse. Maybe they thought Bradley wouldn't fight. But he did want to fight. Maybe they thought Bradley wouldn't go to Mexico, but he wanted to go to Mexico. Maybe thought Showtime wouldn't going to to Mexico, but Showtime wanted to go to Mexico. Things like this, it doesn't help the sport of boxing."

Shaw also took aim at some of Valero's recent public challenges through the media.

"Valero said he wanted to fight the best. Well, the best right now at 140 is Timothy Bradley so obviously he doesn't want to fight the best. He's out there calling out Juan Diaz and Juan Manuel Marquez, all of these guys are all 135-pounders. Next he'll be calling out Darchinyan," Shaw said.

And Shaw doesn't believe the fight with Peterson will happen. He believes the Peterson discussions are nothing more than hype. Peterson lost a twelve round decision to Bradley in December. If the fight comes together, Shaw is tipping Peterson to pull off the upset. 

"All they are trying to do is get attention by calling out Peterson. He'll never fight Peterson. Peterson is a much better fighter than Valero. Peterson will kick his ass. First they called out Bradley, and all of you wrote about it like 'wow, he called out Bradley' but then all of the phones went dead for Bradley," Shaw said.

"The Pacquiao-Clottey media tour must be over, so now Top Rank has to work on Valero again and they are calling out Peterson. What [Peterson manager/trainer] Barry Hunter should do is ask them to sign a contract this week. He should see if they are willing to sign a contract."