By Chris Robinson
Former champion Amir Khan didn’t expect to go into Washington, D.C. and lose his WBA and IBF titles last night to hometown favorite Lamont Peterson but that’s exactly what happened.
In front of 8,647 spectators at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Peterson would turn the tables on the roughly 7-1 odds placed against him as he overcame a first-round knockdown and simply took the fight straight to Khan for twelve entertaining rounds. While Khan had his best success moving and landing flurries, it was Peterson’s dogged attack that led him to a split-decision victory by two scores of 113-112 in his favor and a 115-110 tally against him.
Khan had a lot of momentum heading into the fight, including a July knockout over Zab Judah and an eight-fight winning streak.
The British star had shown interest in a move up to the welterweight division immediately after the Peterson fight, specifically calling for a clash with Floyd Mayweather Jr., but those wishes are now up in smoke.
With the loss from Khan has come some criticism from certain individuals, including Oxnard, Calif.-based trainer Danny Garcia, best known for his work with former titleholder Victor Ortiz.
“To me he looked pretty scared,” Garcia said of Khan moments after the bout. “Now that he’s fought Lamont Peterson and Lamont Peterson doesn’t hit too hard, and he had him running. And Khan was running way too much. I don’t give him no credit. He was running, holding, pushing. It didn’t look good.”
I found Garcia’s opinion to be worthy because of the simple fact that he led Ortiz into battle against Peterson a year ago at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
Ortiz started strong on that night, dropping Lamont twice in the third round, but Peterson would weather the storm and work his way back into the fight as he salvaged a majority-draw
Reflecting on that fight, Garcia insists Ortiz was slighted by the judges.
“When Victor fought Lamont Peterson, we beat Lamont Peterson,” Garcia said adamantly. “I saw that fight ten times. We beat him. When Victor was moving around, he was boxing. He was moving around, looking for different things.”
I had ran into Khan at the final presser for last month’s Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez trilogy bout and he touched on an eventual move to 147 pounds, even citing Ortiz as a possible foe in the future.
Those wishes didn’t go unnoticed by Garcia and he would relish such a fight.
“I’m pretty sure that if Khan wants to fight Victor, we’ll knock Khan out,” he stated.
But that fight doesn’t seem to be an immediate option, as Khan is going back to the drawing board and will likely pursue a rematch with Peterson while Ortiz is penciled in for a February 11th rematch with Andre Berto, who he beat this past April in one of the year’s more telling upsets.
[Reader's note: For exclusive images and an inside look at Peterson's upset over Khan please visit Amir Khan's Mayweather wishes derailed by Peterson ]
