Peterson earns tough decision to take Khan’s titles

LAST night at Walter E. Washington Convention Center, hometown hero Lamont Peterson 30-1-1 (15)fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming a world champion.

He dethroned WBA/IBF junior welterweight champion Amir Khan 26-2 (18) in front of a crowd of 8,000 plus, despite being dropped in the opening round. Many British and Pakistani fans made the trip to the nation’s capitol to support the pride of Bolton. Towards the middle rounds back and forth chants of “D.C.” and “Bolton” could be heard throughout the venue.

 

The fight began with a fast and furious pace with Khan having the advantage boxing from the outside. In round one he connected with a quick left hook as Peterson backed straight up into referee Joseph Cooper. The combination of the punch and Peterson’s leg becoming entangled with Cooper’s leg sent Peterson to the canvas, but it was ruled as a slip. Later in the round, a very similar scenario occurred, ending with Peterson on the canvas again, this time an official knock down. Khan came in with a long right hand that connected, a split second later Peterson landed a hard left, and their legs became entangled. In the replay you could see that Khan also gave his foe a little push to assist him to the canvas along the ropes. The sea-saw battle was action-packed throughout as Peterson realized that he was no match for Khan’s boxing skills, so he was forced to make it a brawl. In rounds 5,6,9, Khan was able to control the distance and land from the outside. In rounds 3 and 4, Peterson was able to keep the fight at close range and smother Khan’s punches, landing with hard body shots. In round 7, Khan was deducted a point for pushing. Cooper gave several warnings before taking the point away. In the championship rounds, both fighters looked exhausted, but he came to win, and kept applying pressure. landed with shots to both the body and head to win the 11th. In the 12th a final round,  Peterson attacked Khan’s body along the ropes. To create space, Khan pushed Peterson away, and landed a right uppercut as he came back in. However, Cooper called for a break after the push to take away another point, which ignited the Khan supporters (including his promoter Oscar De La Hoya). Khan was the fresher fighter in the final round and easily won it, but because of the point deduction, most scored the round even. In the end the final scorecards read 113-112 (2x) for Peterson, and 115-110 in favor of Amir Khan. Team Khan and Oscar De La Hoya are looking for a rematch likely to take place in Khan’s home land of England or possibly a neutral site like Las Vegas.

 

In the supporting televised bout undefeated heavyweight Seth “Mayhem” Mitchell 24-0-1 (18) of Brandywine, MD stopped veteran Timur Ibragimov 30-4-1 (16) in the second round. In the opening stanza Ibragimov boxed well against the former Michigan State linebacker landing a few hard straight right hands, but Mitchell outworked him a landed more. In round 2 the action picked up as they traded hard shots in the center of the ring, Ibragimov going upstairs while Mitchell worked the body. At about 1:10 of the round Ibragimov landed a crisp right hand that backed Mitchell up. It turned out to be his best and last big punch of the night, as just seconds later Mitchell landed a nasty left hook that hurt his man. He followed up with a barrage of power shots to the body and head that forced Ibragimov to lean through the ropes. When action convened Mitchell, who had a fairly large following in the arena, went back to work forcing Ibragimov to the ropes and smothered him with his attack. After a break by the referee, Mitchell connected with a three punch combo, ending with a hard right that hurt the Uzbekistan native. To finish his man off he drove him to the corner with 5 consecutive right hands when the bout was halted with 15 seconds remaining.