Peterson fought the fight of his life against Khan

By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach still isn’t giving Lamont Peterson much credit for having superior talent in his win over the foul-prone and constantly running Amir Khan last December where Peterson exposed Khan for having HUGE gaps in his boxing game in beating him by a 12 round decision. Khan looked like an amateur coming off the play ground to fight for the first time with his shoving and holding Peterson. For a Roach trained fighter to look like that, it tells you that something needs fixing and bad in training camp, whether that be Khan needing a new trainer or Khan simply not grasping the things that Roach is trying to teach him. Whatever it is, Khan looked like an MMA fighter rather than a boxer with his fouling and running all night against Peterson. Roach said to Sky Sports News “He [Peterson] fought the fight of his life. I watched a lot of tapes on Peterson. He never fought better.” That sounds like Roach is trying to get the heat off of himself for sending out there a fighter that didn’t have clue one on how to fight on the inside. Blaming on Peterson having the “fight of his life”, sounds like Roach trying to escape some much deserved blame. He’s the general of the ship and anytime you send one of your troops out there unequipped to do battle, as Khan was, it falls back on the trainer. For Roach to try and escape blame by saying Peterson fought above his own ability, that just looks like a trainer unable to take responsibility for not developing Khan’s inside fighting skills and giving him alternative strategies to deal with a pressure fighter instead of him fouling with his shoving. God, if every fighter used shoving as much as Khan did, the sport would be dead in the water. I know that referees rarely penalize this kind of fouling nowadays, which is sad because it hurts the sport, but Khan was shoving far more than I’ve ever seen a fighter do it before. He looked like it was part of his game to defend against inside fighting, and that’s wrong. You can’t foul because you didn’t learn how to fight on the inside. It’s like someone not learning how to do math, so they hide a calculator. Roach needs to accept blame for Khan looking horrid against Peterson instead of saying Peterson fought the “Fight of his life.” Khan and Peterson will be facing each other next month on May 19th in Las Vegas, and I wish I could say that Khan will fight a clean bout, but I don’t think he will. I see him resorting to the same fouls as he did last time, and Roach can once again say that Peterson fought above his skill level instead of owning up to his fighter Khan not having learned how to deal with a pressure fighter other than to shove him away again and again.