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Prediction: Khan Will Dominate Peterson in Rematch

Prediction: Amir Khan will thoroughly dominate Lamont Peterson in their rematch on May 19.
If Amir Khan wants to take the next step into the ‘great’ or ‘elite’ territory of the welterweight ranks, he needs to win his rematch with Lamont Peterson in dominant fashion. And I think he will.
In short, Amir Khan is simply the superior fighter of the two. Peterson’s backstory is incredible and inspiring. As a prizefighter, he’s something short of great. His toughness and determination are his only discernable strengths as neither his speed nor his power are enough to win a fight against top competition.
Perhaps to a fault, Amir Khan is a crowd-pleasing fighter. His fights are never dull. He throws a good volume of punches and obliges any willing party in a slugfest. If you stand in front of Amir Khan, you’re likely to have a really tough night. At 25, he’s also entering the prime of his boxing years.
Khan and Peterson’s first fight, on Dec. 10, was thrilling, if not marred by refereeing controversy. I think the referee did a pretty poor job throughout the fight, and any fight that has fans and writers both mentioning the ref in the first breath of a fight recap means the ref played too large of a role in the outcome. The two points taken from Amir Khan for pushing definitely impacted the scoring, but they weren’t completely unwarranted. Amir Khan did push continually throughout the fight, and that’s not legal according to the rules. That said, it was a ticky-tacky interpretation of the rule and a one-point deduction was certainly enough. Furthermore, the pushing was largely a bi-product of Lamont Peterson consistently leading with his head. In what proved to be the strategic move that won him the fight, Lamont Peterson led with his head and backed Amir Khan up all night. In some sense, it was really effective aggression (very influential in ringside scoring). Effectiveness aside, it directly led to most of the pushing. Amir Khan operates best in space, and he needed to create separation between himself and Peterson, so his natural reaction was to push him away. Technically, it was illegal; but it was a bad call to take points away for the minor infraction. Still, it wasn’t the referee’s fault that Amir Khan walked away without his hand raised.
This gets to my main point: Amir Khan should have made adjustments to control the distance and pace of the fight, and I’m confident he will do just that in their rematch.
Tactical issues that Khan should—and better–have resolved for this fight (and if he has, it will be a dominant victory):
1) Learn how to hold. Granted this, too, is technically illegal, Bernard Hopkins made a living late in his career by picking his shots, and then holding. It’s not always fun to watch, but it’s wildly effective. Especially when Khan gets hurt, he needs to learn to grab a hold of his opponent so they stop hitting him. He hasn’t yet displayed this quality that veteran fighters adopt. Seeing Devon Alexander employ this strategy of landing hard, clean shots and then holding Marcos Maidana this past weekend was a perfect example to follow. While mildly underwhelming, it was an extremely decisive victory that put Alexander in line for a big fight in a lucrative division. Frankly, Alexander likely learned from watching Khan fail to contain Maidana in the later rounds in their Fight of the Year winning battle just a year ago.
** Side note: I think you’ll know all you need to know about Khan from his Maidana fight. He’s by far the superior fighter/boxer (and you get to see his strong body punching), but his willingness to engage and refusal to hold are paramount. Khan is fun to watch, offensively skilled, and extremely vulnerable to power punches. Oh, and he can bullied. Khan fights fire with fire, but if you’re willing to take a few punches coming in, you can back him into the ropes and force him into a brawl. Despite being neither granite-chinned nor very difficult, Khan has no problem mixing it up in the pocket.
2) Become a better inside fighter/force an inside fight. If he stands his ground in the center of the ring and forces a war of attrition/uppercuts, he would dismantle Lamont Peterson. His body punching, speed and accuracy would overwhelm Peterson.
3) Get off the ropes. In addition to rolling some punches, Amir needs to learn to just get out of a bad situation. He doesn’t exactly embody the term ring generalship, and frankly he does not look like he’s being trained by the best trainer in the world (more to come on this below). He needs to circle away, land shots, and take the center of the ring again. He essentially needs to do what Miguel Cotto did in his rematch with Antonio Margarito (easier to do against a fighter as shot/slow as Margarito than a hungry Lamont Peterson). With Khan’s pedigree, this should’ve been resolved years ago.
If he can make any one of those changes, he wins this fight easily. If he makes any 2+ of them, he’ll win by a near shutout/KO. Lamont Peterson simply cannot compete with Amir Khan on even terms. The only way Peterson remains competitive is if Khan allows him to dictate the pace and location of the fight. This leads me to my next point… these are issues solved in the gym.
If Amir Khan would have consistently spun off of the ropes (which he did intermittently) rather than push off, this rematch never would have happened and Khan would be off to a fight bearing more financial significance. This also would not have been that close of a fight. Amir Khan (same as in the Maidana fight where he nearly was stopped) cannot get off the ropes when he’s tired/hurt. He also does not know how to fight off the ropes. If you watch the classic Mayweather v. Jose Luis Castillo fight (the first one), you’ll see what it looks like to effectively fight off of the ropes. It’s something Floyd’s done his whole career. Now, to be fair, Floyd is a gifted HOF-bound fighter that has skills Amir Khan could only dream of. BUT, when he needed to, Floyd stuck his heels in the center of the ring and refused to be backed down by a far better fighter than Lamont Peterson. Khan either needs to learn how to fight on the ropes or control the pace/distance enough to not end up on them. This is where I question Freddie Roach. How is he not preparing his fighter with enough tools/tricks to stay off of the ropes when that one adjustment would clearly win him the fight?
From a personal standpoint, I think we’ll learn a lot about Freddie Roach in this fight. If he still has what it takes to be a premier trainer, this fight won’t be close. Roach seems to not give a ton of tactical advice to his fighters (which can be seen on “On Freddie Roach”) in between rounds. He doesn’t help them make adjustments anymore. I also think this was a major factor in the most recent Juan Manuel Marquez fight against Manny Pacquiao. Manny kept falling into the same traps throughout the fight, and Freddie was not telling him how to avoid them (lead uppercuts and/or a stronger conviction to a jab would have done the trick).
To be clear, I’m not questioning the merits of a deserving (and recently-elected) Hall of Famer in Freddie Roach. Surely, he turned a 122-lb Filipino fighter from a fireball that only had a 1-2 into one of the greatest offensive fighters of all time. But how much of that was the trainer and how much of that is due to the athlete? Well, I guess I am questioning the merits a little bit. All I’m saying is that he has the better horse in this Khan-Peterson rematch, and any one of a few tactical changes that he could implement in the gym should easily get his fighter a victory.
Amir Khan is yet to truly dominate a great opponent. Marco Antonio Barrera was well past his prime when they fought, and as much as I like Paulie Malignaggi, he epitomizes the term ‘gatekeeper’. If you can’t beat him convincingly, you’re not destined to be a world beater. Peterson isn’t that great opponent, but in order to get his chance at beating a top tier fighter and avoid being looped into that ‘good, but not great’ category, Khan needs to have one hell of a night in this rematch. Again, I think he will.
This fight has more significance to the state of boxing than one would think. This 140-154-lb weight classes have been among the most exciting/best divisions in boxing for the last decade. If Manny takes care of his business against Timothy Bradley (no guarantee, mind you) and Floyd turns Cotto into a gatekeeper, what’s left in these weight classes? The re-emerging Devon Alexander? Not exactly a must-buy PPV name.
If Amir Khan can make the slight aforementioned adjustments to his game, he will win and look good doing so. If he’s able to do that, he can position himself for countless big fights in this division. If not, let’s hope Canelo is as good as advertised (he’s not yet a world-class fighter), because he’ll be one of the few shining stars left in these ranks.
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A Paean to the Great Sportswriter Jimmy Cannon Who Passed Away 50 Years Ago This Week

“Of all his assignments,” said the renowned sportswriter Dave Anderson, “[Jimmy] Cannon appeared to enjoy boxing the most.”
Cannon would have sheepishly concurred. He dated his infatuation with boxing to 1919 when he stood outside a saloon listening to a man with a megaphone relay bulletins from the Dempsey-Willard fight in faraway Toledo. His father followed boxing as did all the Irishmen in his neighborhood. For him, an interest in the sport of boxing, he once wrote, was like a family heirloom. But it became a love-hate relationship. It was Jimmy Cannon, after all, who coined the phrase “boxing is the red light district of sports.”
This week marks the 50th anniversary of Jimmy Cannon’s death. He passed away at age 63 on Dec. 5, 1973, in his room at the residential hotel in mid-Manhattan where he made his home. In the realm of American sportswriters, there has never been a voice quite like him. He was “the hardest-boiled of the hard-drinking, hard-boiled school of sports writing,” wrote Darrell Simmons of the Atlanta Journal. One finds a glint of this in his summary of Sonny Liston’s first-round demolition of Albert Westphal in 1961: “Sonny Liston hit Albert Westphal like he was a cop.”
In his best columns, Jimmy Cannon was less a sportswriter than an urban poet. Here’s what he wrote about Archie Moore in 1955 after Moore trounced Bobo Olson to set up a match with Rocky Marciano: “Someone should write a song about Archie Moore who in the Polo Grounds knocked out Bobo Olson in three rounds…It should be a song that comes out of the backrooms of sloughed saloons on night-drowned streets in morning-worried parts of bad towns. The guy who writes this one must be a piano player who can be dignified when he picks a quarter out of the marsh of a sawdust floor.”
Prior to fighting in Madison Square Garden the previous year – his first appearance in that iconic boxing arena – Moore had roamed the globe in search of fights in a career that began in the Great Depression. Cannon was partial to boxers like Archie Moore, great ring artisans who toiled in obscurity, fighting for small purses –“moving-around money” in Cannon’s words — until the establishment could no longer ignore them.
Jimmy Cannon was born in Lower Manhattan. He left high school after one year to become a copy boy for the New York Daily News. In 1936, at age 26, the News sent him to cover the biggest news story of the day, the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping trial. While there he met Damon Runyon who would become a lifelong friend. At Runyon’s suggestion, he applied for a job as a sportswriter at the New York American, a Hearst paper, and was hired.
During World War II, he was a war correspondent in Europe embedded in Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army. When he returned from the war, he joined the New York Post and then, in 1959, the Journal-American which made him America’s highest-paid sportswriter at a purported salary of $1000 a week. His articles were syndicated and appeared in dozens of papers.
Cannon was very close to Joe Louis. He was the only reporter that Louis allowed in his hotel room on the morning of the Brown Bomber’s rematch with Max Schmeling. Louis, he wrote, “was a credit to his race, the human race.” It was his most-frequently-quoted line.
In an early story, Cannon named Sam Langford the best pound-for-pound fighter of all time. Later he joined with his colleagues on Press Row in naming Sugar Ray Robinson the greatest of the greats. As for the fellow who anointed himself “The Greatest,” Muhammad Ali, Cannon profoundly disliked him. He persisted in calling him Cassius Clay long after Ali had adopted his Muslim name.
It troubled Cannon that Ali was afforded an opportunity to fight for the title after only 19 pro fights. Ali’s poetry, he thought, was infantile. He abhorred Ali’s political views. And, truth be told, he didn’t like Ali because certain segments of society adored him. Cannon didn’t like non-conformists – hippies and anti-war protesters and such. When queried about his boyhood in Greenwich Village, he was quick to note that he lived there “when it was a decent neighborhood, before it became freaky.”
Cannon’s animus toward Ali spilled over into his opinion of Ali’s foil, the bombastic sportscaster Howard Cosell. “If Howard Cosell were a sport,” he wrote,” it would be roller derby.”
Cannon frequently filled his column with a series of one-liners published under the heading “Nobody Asked Me, But…” His wonderfully acerbic put-down of Cosell appeared in one of these columns. But one can’t read these columns today without cringing at some of his ruminations. He once wrote, “Any man is in trouble if he falls in love with a woman he can’t knock down with one punch.” If a newspaperman wrote those words today, he would be out of a job so fast it would make his head spin.
Similarly, his famous line about Joe Louis being a credit to the human race no longer resonates in the way that it once did. There is in its benevolence an air of racial prejudice.
Jimmy Cannon was a lifelong bachelor but in his younger days before he quit drinking cold turkey in 1948, he was quite the ladies man, often seen promenading showgirls around town. Like his pal Damon Runyon, he was a night owl. As the years passed, however, he became somewhat reclusive. The world passed him by when rock n’ roll came in, pushing aside the Tin Pan Alley crooners and torch singers that had kept him company at his favorite late-night haunts.
Cannon’s end days were tough. He suffered a stroke in 1971 as he was packing to go to the Kentucky Derby and spent most of his waking hours in his last two-plus years in a wheelchair. Fortunately, he could afford to hire a full-time attendant. In 2002, he was posthumously elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the Observer category.
Jimmy Cannon once said that he resented it when someone told him that his stuff was too good to be in a newspaper. It was demeaning to newspapers and he never wanted to be anything but a newspaperman. He didn’t always bring his “A” game and some of his stuff wouldn’t hold up well, but the man could write like blazes and the sportswriting profession lost a giant when he drew his last breath.
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Arne K. Lang is a recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling. His latest book, titled Clash of the Little Giants: George Dixon, Terry McGovern, and the Culture of Boxing in America, 1890-1910, was released by McFarland in September, 2022.
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Ryan “KingRy” Garcia Returns With a Bang; KOs Oscar Duarte

It was a different Ryan “KingRy” Garcia the world saw in defeating Mexico’s rugged Oscar Duarte, but it was that same deadly left hook counter that got the job done by knockout on Saturday.
Only the quick survive.
Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) used a variety of stances before luring knockout artist Duarte (26-1-1, 21 KOs) into his favorite punch before a sold-out crowd at Toyota Arena in Houston, Texas. That punch should be patented in gold.
It was somewhat advertised as knockout artist versus matinee idol, but those who know the sport knew that Garcia was a real puncher. But could he rebound from his loss earlier this year?
The answer was yes.
Garcia used a variety of styles beginning with a jab at a prescribed distance via his new trainer Derrick James. It allowed both Garcia and Duarte to gain footing and knock the cobwebs out of their reflexes. Garcia’s jab scored most of the early points during the first three rounds. He also snapped off some left hooks and rights.
“He was a strong fighter, took a strong punch,” said Garcia. “I hit him with some hard punches and he kept coming.”
Duarte, an ultra-pale Mexican from Durango, was cautious, knowing full well how many Garcia foes had underestimated the power behind his blows.
Slowly the muscular Mexican fighter began closing in with body shots and soon both fighters were locked in an inside battle. Garcia used a tucked-in shoulder style while Duarte pounded the body, back of the head and in the back causing the referee to warn for the illegal punches twice.
Still, Duarte had finally managed to punch Garcia with multiple shots for several rounds.
Around the sixth round Garcia was advised by his new trainer to begin jabbing and moving. It forced Duarte out of his rhythm as he was unable to punch without planting his feet. Suddenly, the momentum had reversed again and Duarte looked less dangerous.
“I had to slow his momentum down. That softened him up,” said Garcia about using that change in style to change Duarte’s pressure attack. “Shout out to Derrick James.”
Boos began cascading from the crowd but Garcia was on a roll and had definitely regained the advantage. A quick five-punch combination rocked Duarte though not all landed. The danger made the Mexican pause.
In the eighth round Duarte knew he had to take back the momentum and charged even harder. In one lickety-split second a near invisible counter left hook connected on Duarte’s temple and he stumbled like a drunken soldier on liberty in Honolulu. Garcia quickly followed up with rights and uppercuts as Duarte had a look of terror as his legs failed to maintain stability. Down he went for the count.
Duarte was counted out by referee James Green at 2:51 of the eighth round as Garcia watched from the other side of the ring.
“I started opening up my legs a little bit to open up the shot,” explained Garcia. “When I hurt somebody that hard, I just keep cracking them. I hurt him with a counter left hook.”
The weapon of champions.
Garcia’s victory returns him back to the forefront as one of boxing’s biggest gate attractions. A list of potential foes is his to dissect and choose.
“I’m just ready to continue to my ascent to be a champion at 140,” Garcia said.
It was a tranquil end after such a tumultuous last three days.
Other Bouts
Floyd Schofield (16-0, 12 KOs) blitzed Mexico’s Ricardo “Not Finito” Lopez (17-8-3) with a four knockdown blowout that left fans mesmerized and pleased with the fighter from Austin, Texas.
Schofield immediately shot out quick jabs and then a lightning four-punch combination that delivered Lopez to the canvas wondering what had happened. He got up. Then Scholfield moved in with a jab and crisp left hook and down went Lopez like a dunked basketball bouncing.
At this point it seemed the fight might stop. But it proceeded and Schofield unleashed another quick combo that sent Lopez down though he did try to punch back. It was getting monotonous. Lopez got up and then was met with another rapid fire five- or six-punch combination. Lopez was down for the fourth time and the referee stopped the devastation.
“I appreciate him risking his life,” said Schofield of his victim.
In a middleweight clash Shane Mosley Jr. (21-4, 12 KOs) out-worked Joshua Conley (17-6-1, 11 KOs) for five rounds before stopping the San Bernardino fighter at 1:51 of the sixth round. It was Mosley’s second consecutive knockout and fourth straight win.
Mosley continues to improve in every fight and again moves up the middleweight rankings.
Super middleweight prospect Darius Fulghum (9-0, 9 KOs) of Houston remained undefeated and kept his knockout string intact with a second round pounding and stoppage over Pachino Hill (8-5-1) in 56 seconds of that round.
Photo credit: Golden Boy Promotions
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Jordan Gill TKOs Michael Conlan Who May Have Reached the End of the Road

Fighting on his home turf, two-time Olympian Michael Conlan was an 8/1 favorite over Jordan Gill tonight in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Had he won, Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn was eyeing a rematch for Conlan with Leigh Wood. Their March 2022 rumble in Nottingham was a popular pick for the Fight of the Year. But the 29-year-old Gill, a Cambridgeshire man, rendered that discussion moot with a seventh-round stoppage. It was Conlan’s third loss inside the distance in the last 18 months and he would be wise to call it a day. His punch resistance is plainly not what it once was.
It was with considerable fanfare that Conlan cast his lot with Top Rank coming out of the amateur ranks. Tonight was his first assignment for Matchroom and his first fight at 130 pounds after coming up short in two world featherweight title fights. And he almost didn’t make it past the second round. Gill had him on the canvas in the opening minute of round two compliments of a left hook and stunned him late in the round with a right hand that left him on unsteady legs.
He survived the round and for a fleeting moment in the sixth frame it appeared that he had reversed Gill’s momentum. But Gill took charge again in the next stanza, trapping Conlan in the corner and unloading a fusillade of punches that forced referee Howard Foster to waive it off, much to the great dismay of the crowd. The official time was 1:09 of round seven.
Released by Top Rank, Conlan trained for this fight in Miami, Florida, under Pedro Diaz, best known for rejuvenating the career of Miguel Cotto. But the switch in trainer and in promoter made no difference as Conlan, who won his first amateur title at age 11, was damaged goods before he entered the ring. It was a career-defining victory for Jordan Gill (28-2-1, 9 KOs) who was not known as a big puncher and was returning to the ring after being stopped by Kiko Martinez 13 months ago in his previous start.
Semi-wind-up
In the “Battle of Belfast,” undefeated welterweight Lewis Crocker seized control in the opening round and went on to win a lopsided decision over intra-city rival Tyrone McKenna (23-4-1). Two of the judges gave Crocker every round and the other had it 98-92, but yet this was entertaining fight in spurts. McKenna had more fans in the building, but Crocker, seven years younger at age 26, went to post a 7/2 favorite and youth was served.
Other Bouts of Note
Belfast super welterweight Caoimhin Agyarko, who overcame a near-fatal mugging at age 20, advanced to 14-0 (7) with a 10-round split decision over Troy Williamson (20-2-1). The judges had it 98-92 and 97-93 for Agyarko with a dissenter submitting a curious 96-94 score for the 31-year-old Williamson who wasn’t able to exploit his advantages in height and reach.
Sean McComb, a 31-year-old Belfast southpaw, scored what was arguably the best win of his career with a 10-round beat-down of longtime sparring partner Sam Maxwell. Two of the judges gave McComb every round and the other had it 99-88. McComb, who has an interesting nickname, “The Public Nuisance, successfully defended his WBO European super welterweight strap while elevating his record to 18-1 (6). The fading, 35-year-old Maxwell, a former BBBofC British title-holder, lost for third time in his last four starts after winning his first 16 pro fights.
Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom
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