Khan: I’m going to change a lot of things for the Peterson rematch

By William Mackay: Former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (26-2, 18 KO’s) has little more than two months to go before his rematch with the current IBF/WBA champion Lamont Peterson (30-1-1, 15 KO’s) in an HBO televised fight at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Khan says he’s going to make some major changes to his game, but we’ve heard that kind of thing before by fighters only to see them fight the exact same way they did in their first fight.

Khan said “In my eyes, the fight was the best fight of 2011. It was toe-to-toe action and exciting. But for this fight. we’re going to change a lot of things. I’ll train hard and am not going to make any mistakes at all.”

I guess Khan saying he’s going to change some things is code for Khan deciding to run more and likely do a lot of clinching as well. We’ve already heard Khan say he’s going to throw more uppercuts than he did last time out but that’s not going to stop Peterson from pressing the attack. Khan can’t beat Peterson by going uppercut happy. Uppercuts work but if that’s all you’re throwing then it’s going to be ineffective. In looking at Freddie Roach trained fighters, they’re usually not good at fighting on the inside and tend to use movement as their defense. I suspect Khan will use the same hit and run style he used last time he fought Peterson. That to me is the only thing Khan will do more of. He may try and throw some uppercuts but that isn’t going to stop Peterson from working on the inside. Khan will likely revert to his pulling down on the head and shoving almost immediately like a smoker unable to kick the cigarette habit.

The Khan-Peterson fight last December was exciting but it was hardly a toe-to-toe battle like Khan portrays it. If you look at it again, it was mostly Khan running from the fourth round on and either covering up, shoving or pulling down on Peterson’s head when the two fighters were in close. That wasn’t a toe-to-toe fight. It was kind of the opposite. It could have been a toe-to-toe fight if Khan was interesting in brawling, but he did a lot of running, shoving and holding. Peterson is the one that made the fight exciting in my view. He took the fight to Khan and had him on the run the entire second half of the bout.