by David P. Greisman
Lamont Peterson will only drop back down to 140 — where he long plied his craft — if it’s financially worth it. And two of the opponents he’d see as worthy of draining himself back down to junior welterweight are Lucas Matthysse and Terence Crawford.
“If any of those fights could happen, then I would definitely jump on it and go down and make the weight,” Peterson told BoxingScene.com on April 19.
Peterson and Matthysse fought once before, in May 2013, with Matthysse scoring a third-round technical knockout. Since then, Peterson has outpointed Dierry Jean, stopped Edgar Santana and lost a close majority decision to Danny Garcia earler in April. Matthysse went on to lose a unanimous decision to Danny Garcia, stopped John Molina in a war, made quick work of Roberto Ortiz and then won a close battle with Ruslan Provodnikov this past Saturday.
Crawford, the former lightweight champion, came up to 140 this past Saturday and scored a technical knockout over Thomas Dulorme.
But Crawford is with Top Rank and Matthysse with Golden Boy, neither of whom is regularly working with Peterson’s adviser, Al Haymon.
“I think it’ll be tough. But you never know in boxing,” Peterson said.
Peterson didn’t catch Crawford-Dulorme, though he did see Matthysse-Provodnikov.
“That was a good fight. It went pretty much the way I thought it would go,” Peterson said. “I knew that Matthysse would box him a bit. He has pretty good boxing skills. He has a pretty good boxing IQ. I knew he would move a little bit. I thought Matthysse won the fight and I was happy for him.”
Peterson looks back at the Matthysse fight as simply being a case of Matthysse landing a good shot and Peterson not being able to recover in time.
He also feels, as he did back then, that he got off his game plan after taking what he felt were illegal blows.
“He hit me behind the head a few times repeatedly” Peterson said. “I did want to get close to him so I could get him back in the back of his head.”
Here’s what Peterson said two years ago:
“The game plan was to keep boxing. Sometime in the second round, he hit me in the back of the head. I got a little upset, started getting more reckless, and wanted to bang. I kind of abandoned the game plan a little bit, and I paid for it.
“He had me hurt. I was hoping [referee Steve Smoger wouldn’t] stop the fight, because I believe I can weather any storm, but of course the referee is going to look out for my best interests. I kind of turned a little too much on my hook, and left an opening. My hands were up, but I turned too much and gave him an angle.”
Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide . Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com
