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Referee faces wrath of Khan


On Saturday night, the Bolton lad lost both WBA and IBF light-welterweight titles after suffering a split-decision defeat to Lamont Peterson. 


Khan reckons he was robbed, but then he would, wouldn’t he? (At least he didn’t have broken toes to blame lamely.) Khan was not happy about Cooper's decision to dock him two points in the bout - one each in the seventh and 12th round.

A joint statement was released by Team Khan and Golden BoyPromotions; "Following the decision in the fight, Team Khan and Golden Boy Promotions intends to make inquiries with the District of Columbia Boxing and Wrestling Commission, the IBF and the WBA regarding the performance of referee Joseph Cooper and will also be seeking clarification regarding certain ambiguities with respect to the scores of the fight."

Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach – recently inducted into boxing's hall of fame – may have seen the writing on the wall. Before the Peterson fight, he predicted that it would be their “toughest fight of all”. Roach, who learned his trade from the legendary Eddie Futch, warned that “Peterson is not a journeyman and there will be a stage where he has us on the ropes because he is a pressure fighter.”

But Roach also told the press afterwards that Cooper "had acted like a judge in there, rather than a referee". Khan thought he was fighting two men in the ring and there’s some pretty convincing evidence that a couple of hometown rulings could have slipped through the ropes.  In the end, Peterson got a majority decision with scores of 113-112 from both North Carolina’s Valerie Dorsett and Pennsylvanian George Hill; Nelson Vazquez from Puerto Rico gave it to Khan 115-110.


But on a decision that close; even without those two points deducted, Khan doesn’t have a huge amount to grumble about. There certainly didn’t seem to be any unbiased ringside consensus in the reports I’ve read so far but even taking that into consideration, few had Khan as the clear winner in that contest;  pushing and shoving notwithstanding.

Either way. The stage is well set for a lucrative re-match and Khans gets another crack at winning over US fight audiences. Oscar De La Hoya, a boxing legend in the ring and founder of Golden Boy Promotions was sanguine about the Khan’s defeat. He thought that it was only fair to have a rematch in Khan’s home country of England. 

As long he gets Golden Boy’s cut, I’m guessing that De La Hoya isn’t too fussy about what where they pitch the ring. A re-match is another payday for the fighters and for Golden Boy and if they can produce a contest of the same reported intensity of this fight then they’ll have earned their purses.
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