The place is Washington DC, the hometown of Lamont Peterson. The city for which former two light welterweight belt holder and former #1 ranked light welterweight King Amir Khan was set to defend his title and belts. Khan who was highly favored to defeat Lamont Peterson, ended up in a very tough fight which rivaled the fight when Khan fought Marcos Maidana.
It was a slugfest from start to finish, some say it could be a candidate for fight of the year. But what made this fight controversial was the two point deduction by Referee Joe Cooper. Referee Joe Cooper deducted 1 point away from Amir Khan for pushing off Lamont Peterson. In the fight, Referee kept warning Amir Khan to stop pushing off. But if you watch the closely, you can clearly see Lamont Peterson purposely trying to smother and push himself into Khan. You can hear Joe Cooper telling Khan to stop holding and to get away from Peterson. Many times during the fight, you can hear Joe Cooper tell Khan "Get Away Khan". This was like a cue for Lamont Peterson to continue pressure Khan and to clench himself into Khan so the end result would be Khan has to push away Lamont Peterson. Referee Joe Cooper kept telling Amir Khan to stop pushing off but gave no hard warning that if Khan was to push Peterson off again, it will lead to a point deduction. Normaly, Referee's will give a hard warning before any point deductions. But DC native, Referee Joe Cooper did not give a hard warning before it led to the crucial point deductions in the 7th round when Khan used his elbow to push away Lamont Peterson. After the 7th round, Khan's only recourse to avoid Lamont Peterson's pressure and smothering was to get on his bicycle and run backwards.
It was obvious this was Peterson's tactic to not only pressure Khan but to force him into the ropes and do his damage with solid shots to the body and heavy rights. Also Peterson's plan was to smother Khan and force Khan to push him off which could lead to another point deduction. This still was a very close fight for which Khan and Peterson were in heavy exchanges throughout the night. The 12th round ended up as the most crucial round for both fighters. The fight was close to even at that time, and the 12th would determine the winner of the bout. From the start of the 12th, it was clear Khan was going after Peterson to secure the round. Peterson was clearly getting tagged and was getting hit by Khan's multiple combos. But Peterson had an ace card up his sleeve, to force and dig himself into Khan so Khan would have to push him off. And thats exactly what happened. Peterson managed to get right on Khan and Khan did exactly what Peterson wanted, a push off. And that push off led to the another crucial point deduction away from Khan. So crucial that it was the difference in the overall scoring from the Judges. Judges George Hill and Valerie Dorsett gave 113-112, Peterson.
While Judge Nelson Vasquez gave 115-110, Khan. If there was not a point deduction for Khan on the 12th, it would have led to a victory for Amir Khan. Possibly a majority or split decision. Instead, DC native Lamont Peterson was the victor of this very close fight for which we will eventually see a rematch and possibly a trilogy. Many boxing scribes were led to believe that Lamont Peterson was given a victory by way of Referee Joe Cooper. Some were insinuating he was a favoring hometown fighter in this fight because Cooper himself is also a DC native.
I have seen many fights in my time, and I've seen the amount of pushing off. And I have yet to see a point deduction from the result of pushing off. I remember watching Ali pushing off Frazier endlessly but never once got a point deduction. I'll even go way back when Henry Armstrong fought Cefarino Garcia. Garcia was smothering the smaller Armstrong and pushing off Armstrong. Garcia never once received a point deduction. In fact the Referee went into the middle and separated both fighters. This went on for 10 rounds and ended in a draw. It is interesting and suspicious to see a victory for a challenger were the difference came from point deductions. Point deduction from a penalty for which hardly ever or have ever seen in many fights. Again, I've seen fights for the last 40 years and this is the first time ever I've seen several point deductions due to pushing off. But again this year we all witnessed a fight where a fighter threw so many low blows, low blows in a double digit where it did not result in a single point deduction. Boxing continues to surprise us. It seems like this is the year of the Referees and Judging were the forefront of controversies.
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