On
Saturday night, Lamont Peterson captured the WBA and IBF versions of the junior
welterweight titles by dethroning Amir “King” Khan in a thrilling
back-and-forth battle at the D.C. Convention Center in the nation’s capital. It
was interesting to hear HBO's Max Kellerman state that Khan agreed to face
Peterson in his hometown out of some adventurous “take-on-all-comers” spirit
when, in reality, the reason why this fight took place in Washington D.C. is
that Khan needed the host hotel (the Mandalay Bay) to coax its players with
free tickets and rooms to attend his
last two Las Vegas outings against Marcos Maidana and Zab Judah. That and the
fact they probably underestimated the threat Peterson was (I still can't
believe he was such a heavy ‘dog coming in). That said, Golden Boy Promotions
put this card- also featuring heavyweight local Seth Mitchell- where it
belonged. If this fight was going to be staged in the United States, then Peterson’s
hometown was the only place that would draw the numbers it did (approximately
9,000).
I've
believed for awhile that Khan's invasion of the States was a bit premature.
Unlike his predecessors like Naseem Hamed, Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe, he
didn't allow Frank Warren to fully build him into bona fide attraction in
England. Therefore, when Khan fights in the States, a horde of fans doesn’t
follow him. He rolled the dice this weekend and came up snake-eyes. Honestly,
being in fights of this nature don't really hurt his standing all that much.
For two straight Decembers, we have seen him involved in “Fight of the Year”-type
contests. There is always a market for that in boxing (on any continent).
For
now, all this talk of Amir Khan facing Floyd Mayweather can be shelved (and it
was ridiculously premature to begin with). Khan is what he is, a physically
talented boxer who still fights like an amateur, still has some technical flaws
(such as over-striding when he punches) and is impotent on the inside where he
was mugged by Peterson. His fans claim Peterson was leading with his head. The
rest of the boxing world calls it “in-fighting.” Bottom line, when you attack
the body, your head will be in close proximity to your opponent’s. All night,
Khan just kept looking at referee Joe Cooper (more on him later) for help
instead of throwing uppercuts in self-defense.
This
was a close fight. I think both men made a strong case for winning it but while
Khan threw a lot of flashy, fast combinations, you can make an argument that
the harder, cleaner, more professional punches (especially to the body) were
landed by Peterson.
HANGING
WITH MR. COOPER
Like
most everyone else, I found Joe Cooper as Peterson-Khan’s third man to have
been a rather dubious choice, given the magnitude of the event in D.C. (which
hadn't had a major fight in town in years). And while Cooper may have gone with
the letter of the law in penalizing Khan twice for pushing off on Peterson, I
just question if both deductions were really warranted in a fight of that
magnitude. In my opinion, I don't think Peterson was knocked down in the first.
Overall, I found Cooper to be quite intrusive and his ring mechanics poor (he
seemed to get in the way an awful lot).
While
the concept of hometown-themed fights is sound and proven to be successful,
when the perception (or perhaps the reality) is that the visiting fighters will
get jobbed by the officials, it makes these types of events more difficult to
secure.
D.C.
While
this promotion was a commercial success and everyone I spoke to who attended
told me they loved the atmosphere, the actual staging of this card left a lot
to be desired. This is just one correspondence I got from someone who attended Peterson-Khan
this weekend:
As a DC resident and a hardcore boxing
fan, I was very excited to see that championship-level boxing was coming to my
hometown for the first time in many years. In fact, I chose not to attend
Cotto-Margarito II in New York last week, specifically because I felt it was
more important to put my money towards the local show in a city that doesn't
get big fights on a regular basis. My hope was that if DC-area boxing fans
showed up in strong numbers, DC would be seem by promoters as a legit candidate
for more big fights in the near future. I was impressed that Golden Boy took
the initiative to stage the fight in DC instead of taking the often-uninspired
approach of dumping fights in the standard casino venues in Las Vegas, Atlantic
City, Connecticut, etc. And Golden Boy was rewarded for their decision, because
the Convention Center was packed last night with true boxing fans. Just by
listening to the conversations that people were having, it was obvious that
many of the 9,000+ paying customers were loyal boxing fans who knew what they
were talking about. When you hear fans in the crowd talking about Peterson's
strategy against Bradley, or Khan's performance against McCloskey, you know
it's a knowledgeable boxing crowd and not a bunch of people just looking to be
seen on a Saturday
night. The arena was packed well before the HBO telecast began.
However, while it was great for Golden
Boy and HBO to bring this fight to DC, their actual running of the event was
far from fan-friendly. On the day tickets went on sale, certain mid-level
seating sections were mysteriously unavailable online, and a seating map was
nowhere to be found. Then, as you've already heard by now, when the crowd filed
in last night, many were surprised to see that all 9,000+ seats were laid out
on a flat convention hall floor. This resulted in the vast majority of the fans
(including myself, the owner of a $50 seat) with little-to-no ability to see
the ring. "Watching" the fight meant staring at a TV screen suspended
above the ring. To add insult to injury, when my friend and I went to purchase
a beer before the Mitchell-Ibragimov fight at a concession stand on the
convention hall floor, we were told that beer/liquor sales were being cut off,
because "HBO is about to turn its cameras on, and they don't want to see
people in the background purchasing alcohol." We tried a second concession
stand and got the same answer. I have no idea if this company-line excuse was
HBO's fault, Golden Boy's, or the venue's, but it's ridiculous nonetheless.
It's one thing to be forced to watch a fight on a TV screen because the ticket
you purchased has no sight lines, but it's even worse when you're told you
can't even enjoy a cold beverage while doing so. I doubt the average HBO Boxing
viewer at 11:30 pm on a Saturday night is going to be
offended by the sight of someone purchasing a drink in the background of a
camera shot. And after re-watching the fight on DVR at home, not once did the
cameras veer anywhere remotely in the direction of the area where these alcohol
sales would have been occurring.
Part of the allure of attending a big
fight in a non-casino venue is the idea that you can enjoy a fight in-person
without having to spend an arm and a leg to do so. Yet last night, the only way
to buy yourself an actual view of the ring was to spend $150 or more for the
first several rows of seats. The average paying customer, despite being in the
arena, was "shut out" from the event from a true viewing perspective.
So while staging the fight in DC seemed to be a rare occurrence where the
average boxing fan would be valued, the handling of the event ended up being
business as usual.
Brian
Washington DC
Twitter: @bpgriffith
Brian, thanks for the feedback. It's important that paying customers like you
are heard. I hope the powers that be read this and take it to heart. But that
part about HBO and the beer embargo had me laughing. That seems like something
they just made up on the fly as the kegs were are empty. I mean, really, the
HBO audience can't bear the sight of patrons getting themselves a Budweiser, that
somehow, that's a visual that simply can't be seen on the network?
Uh, have you seen this season of “Boardwalk Empire”?
But seriously, let's hope these are just rookie mistakes and as Peterson and
other future D.C. standouts headline cards in your neighborhood, let’s also
hope these issues become a thing of the past.
In other words, make sure the Verizon Center is reserved.
FINAL FLURRIES
Haven't seen it yet but big win for Brian Viloria versus Giovani Segura this
weekend in the Philippines. Love to see Viloria face Roman Gonzalez next
year...Seth Mitchell has a made a lot of progress but I think there is still a
ways to go before proclaiming him the “Great American Hope”...So I guess the
David Lemieux bandwagon is completely empty?...If you didn't notice, the other
Donaire, Glenn, made his return to the ring this Friday night, stopping Alex
Sanchez on Telemundo...Tebow Time is a lot like an episode of “Three's Company,”
so bad yet so good and even though you know the ending, you just have to watch
regardless...Can you believe a QB from Baylor won the Heisman Trophy?...I know
the Packers are a machine but losing Greg Jennings would be huge...Based on the
injuries they suffered, I think Gary Kubiak has done a great job in guiding the
Texans this season...“The Big Bang Theory” remains a top-notch show...OK, will
the Lakers make some trades or not? I'm getting restless”...
Read Part One of this Article:
Peterson and Hunter Take Home Their Lombardi Trophy Steve Kim
More of Steve Kim's recent work is linked below his contact information.
