Lamont Peterson Stops Edgar Santana in Round 10

IBF junior welterweight titleholder Lamont Peterson, from Washington D.C., dominated the overmatched Edgar Santana, a 35-year-old from New York, stopping him in Round 10 of a scheduled 12 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Saturday night. The doctor at ringside stopped the bout after seeing Santana take punch after punch over all 10 rounds, including hard left and right hooks to the temple in the final moments of the fight.

“I was able to show a lot of dimensions of my game,” said Peterson after the fight, a statement made more true by the limited nature of the fighter he stopped moments earlier.

Peterson started Round 1 per usual: cautious. He boxed Santana from a distance behind a long jab though he also used a few hard uppercuts to the body to make his mark. Santana was the aggressor but Peterson kept him at the end of his punches for the most part.

In Round 2, Peterson circled Santana as the underdog tried to land left and right hooks. Peterson controlled the action with his jab and made Santana miss wildly at times. Santana’s best work was a double left hook, to the body and then the head. Peterson did the same to Santana with the jab but more often and with greater accuracy. Peterson’s lead left hook punctuated things towards the end of the round.

Peterson slowed the circling in Round 3 to let his hands go more. He started his combinations with his jab and kept them under three punches in total each time. Peterson did good work to Santana’s body with left and right hooks. Every one of them was thrown with gumption.

Peterson won the battle on the inside in Round 4. Hooks, uppercuts and subtle moves with his feet kept Santana in harm’s way until the action resumed from the outside. But Peterson seemed intent on keeping things within arm’s length for most of the three minutes, so the two tussled about with Peterson getting the better of things with clubbing rights and lefts to Santana’s body.

Peterson put his hard hat on in Round 5. He dug hard to the body then back up with a left hook to the chin that staggered Santana, who fell back to the ropes right where Peterson wanted him. Peterson worked him over good, into the corner and then back to the middle of the ring with power shots to the body. Peterson was walking him down now. The action would have fit within a phone booth. Peterson kept the pressure on with devastating punches to the body. The left hook to Santana’s liver seemed to sap the energy right out of him. The two traded blows in the center of the ring for the last minute of the round.

Peterson returned to the jab in Round 6 and went back to circling Santana around the ring. The more crude Santana came straight forward with left jabs and hooks, but Peterson was too slick. The two moved back in close halfway through the round and Peterson went back downstairs to the body.

Round 7 was a bit of a showboat round for Peterson, but all the exaggerated movements around the ring did was allow Santana a chance to land some punches early. Peterson got busy again at the halfway mark and put on a good uppercut and hook show to Santana’s boxing to take the round.

Rounds 8 and Round 9 were similar in that Santana threw punches but most were blocked, parried or inconsequential. Meanwhile, Peterson didn’t commit to his power much until the end of Round 9 where the combination of good angles and thudding punches finally did enough damage to the tough Santana to make Round 10 a good time to stop the fight.

Peterson said afterwards he hoped to fight TBRB, Ring, WBC and WBA junior welterweight champion Danny Garcia next in a unification bout, something most fight fans probably wish had happened instead of the Santana bout.

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