BOXING:DEFEAT MIRED in perceived injustice can be tough to accept.
But convincing Amir Khan that he lost to Lamont Peterson in the challenger’s own backyard because of a referee unfamiliar with the demands of governing a world-class fight, as well as a curious delay by ringside officials in tallying the scores, was a cursedly difficult assignment for friends and family who gathered around him after he had surrendered his two world titles.
The departing light-welterweight champion took little consolation in the near-unanimous ringside sympathy for him. Underlying his frustration is a suspicion that his path towards a fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr next year is now compromised. What is more likely is his stock has risen in a fighting environment that puts guts and glory above technical excellence.
Certainly, his American paymasters, HBO, will not be unhappy that the row will probably be resumed with a rematch in March.
What is indisputable is this was a rousing, close fight, full of meaty blows, no little skill and high-pitched drama. Nobody could argue either way with the result – only the method of getting there.
Your correspondent scored it a draw. Other ringside opinion was divided, perhaps leaning towards Khan, inspired possibly by the feeling that we had not witnessed a fair fight.
Khan had Peterson over in the first, almost again in the ninth and flirted with disintegration on the ropes more than once himself as the Washingtonian thrashed his ribs, before taking the 12th – only to be penalised a second time for the rare crime of pushing. That did for him.
Certainly it was a poorly officiated event. Glorious a struggle as it was, many of the crowd were left bemused. They wanted a definitive judgment and they got controversy and confusion.
Compounding the loser’s pain was his belief in a 10-minute wait between the end of the action and the announcement (and even that had to be fine-tuned on one scorecard) that he had won. As the fighters stood either side of the referee, Joe Cooper, Khan’s conditioner, Alex Ariza, who had been given the “nod” from an official, whispered in his ear: “You’ve got it.” A tired smile dressed the champion’s face – to be replaced within seconds by despair.
As he put it: “It was like I was against two people in there.”
Khan rationalised the second defeat of his career by blaming Cooper. There was a case for that view, given that pushing, even with the elbows, is on a par with holding in a clinch. Nevertheless, there is no specific mention of it in either rule book of the governing bodies in charge of the contest, the World Boxing Association and the International Boxing Federation, so it came under a wider brief of foul play, the greyest of areas in sport. Cooper did caution Khan once in passing for pushing in the third, but did not make it clear he was in danger of a penalty. When he docked him a point the first time, there was no warning at all.
Mitigating that violation was the fact that Peterson all night bulled his way in, head down, yet the referee warned the local fighter about the use of his head only at the start of the fateful 12th.
Khan threw more punches, 757 to 573, but Peterson scored with more blows of significant force, 188 to 169. Into that chasm of doubt stepped the judges, two of whom did not have far to drive to get home. Only the ex-cop from Puerto Rico, Nelson Vazquez, gave Khan a fair shake – and even his score of 115-110 was out of kilter.
The American judges, George Hill and Valerie Dorsett, saw the contest with eerie consistency right through – although Hill’s score in the seventh was subsequently adjusted on the official sheet.
This was a fight that deserved to be judged on canvas, not paper.
HBO’s Larry Merchant observed after the fight: “There isn’t always truth and justice in boxing.”
Maybe he’s right. It is the way of the fight game, a mistress existing under a veil of respectability, yet too often exposed as a whore.
