By Mark Vester
Never underestimate the power of a heavyweight.
The crowd at New York's Madison Square stood as they thought an upset was about to happen after Jameel “Big Time” McCline (38-8-3, 23 KOs) knocked down WBC interim heavyweight champion Samuel “The Nigerian Nightmare” Peter (29-1, 22 KOs) three times, but punched himself out by the middle rounds, which allowed Peter to battle his way back to win a unanimous decision. The scores were 113-112, 115-111 and 115-110, all for Peter.
McCline caught Peter with a huge uppercut to knock him down at the end of the second round and then dropped Peter two more times in the third. Peter held on, and piled up the rounds as an exhausted McCline had spent himself in the early going.
McCline was supposed to meet Vitali Klitschko on Sept. 22 in Munich, Germany, but Klitschko pulled out less than two weeks before the fight. McCline then agreed to fight DaVarryl “Touch of Sleep” Williamson on the undercard of the Garden card.
The originally main event was supposed to have been WBC heavyweight champion Oleg Maskaev defending against Peter; then Maskaev pulled out with a back injury.
McCline then agreed to step in to fight Peter as a late replacement.
