PETERLEE, CO. DURHAM – On a perishingly cold Saturday night in the North East of England, flyweights Chris Edwards and Shinny Bayaar punched lumps out of one another through 12 hectic rounds on this Maloney Promotions card. Edwards, the brisket-tough veteran from Stoke, banked the first eight of those and stood firm when Bayaar, Oldham by way of Mongolia, rallied late to record a unanimous victory via scores of 116-113 and 117-112 (twice). In doing so, Edwards tallied the first defence of his British championship while avenging the split decision loss Bayaar had hung on him back in 2009.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- This city clearly has craved some boxing, as the racous thousands showed Saturday night, and they got as tasty a serving of it as they could when hometown boy Lamont Peterson and Amir Khan went to war in a Fight of the Year candidate where Peterson upset the much more acclaimed talent.

The final scorecards read 113-112 twice for Peterson and 115-110 for Khan, whereas my score was 113-112 for Khan. It's a fight that could have gone either way -- and kind of did, on the scorecards -- but the two points referee Joe Cooper took from Khan in the 7th and 12th for shoving/elbowing Peterson were the difference, mathematically, on the scorecards. Those point deductions will probably be debated hotly for several days, but I wasn't crazy about them. Both men were fouling a fair amount, Khan a good deal more than Peterson, but I didn't see anything that warranted deductions, and with this fight being on Peterson's home turf, naturally there are already questions.

Khan began the better, scoring a knockdown in the 1st round that wasn't, and not getting a knockdown call in that one I thought he deserved. He was faster and busier early, although Peterson started to work his way into things as early in the 2nd with his body attack. In the 3rd, though, Peterson finally forced his way inside and did major damage with his combinations under, around and through Khan's high guard. Peterson said after the fight that he switched tactics when he realized he couldn't outbox Khan. From there on out, it was a back and forth affair, with Khan hurting Peterson in the 9th but mostly shoeshining late, and Peterson suffocating Khan with outstanding pressure. Peterson and Khan simply couldn't get rid of the other, and both refused to take a punch for an answer, and as a result they made for ideal foils.

Khan comes away bitter about the refereeing: "It was like I was going up against two people in there," he told HBO's Larry Merchant. But he blamed himself somewhat for not doing enough in his opponent's neighborhood. "When you're in D.C. you have to win more convincingly."

This gives Peterson the win over a top-notch name that he didn't get against Timothy Bradley or Victor Ortiz, and vindicates his decision to turn down a Khan fight earlier to get better terms later. "As a person, I stand for something," he said. "I don't go for anything." Peterson stood tall Saturday night. And after this performance, now we'll notice his head above the crowd's. no comments

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As fantastic as it is that more than 9,000 are expected tonight at the Washington Convention Center, and as refreshing as it is that the audience trickling in is mostly black (they've long been thought to be abandoning the sport), it's more than a bit horrendous that almost half of those people will have an obscured view. The entire layout is flat, just rows and rows of seating, and there are large sections in the back that have significantly obscured views courtesy a giant curtained, girdered structure that looks as though it belongs to HBO.

With that good news/bad news out of the way, we'll work our way through the undercard here, in chronological order. We'll talk about not only the main televised undercard bout between heavyweight Seth Mitchell and Timur Ibragimov, but also fights involving local-ish boxers like middleweight Fernando Guerrero and very youthful local prospect Dusty Harrison who no doubt will bring in some fans for this show.

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(Lamont Peterson at the weigh-in. Credit: me)

First things first: Amir Khan weighed 140, Lamont Peterson weighed 139 and both looked to be in fine shape at Friday's weigh-in. That's the boring part. The less-boring part comes from roaming around the Carnegie Library talking to the people at the weigh-in. Below, find some musings from Paulie Malignaggi and Paul Williams on their next fights, from promoter Oscar De La Hoya and ring announcer Henry "Discombobulating" Jones on boxing's future in Washington, D.C. and more.
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Ultra-gifted Amir Khan will try Saturday on HBO against Lamont Peterson to put the finishing touches on a 2011 that could make him a Fighter of the Year finalist. Khan already has wins over Paul McCloskey and Zab Judah, good competition in the junior welterweight division to be sure, but that beating the trio of McCloskey, Judah and Peterson is a Fighter of the Year-worthy campaign says more about how weak the contenders for the honor are in 2011. However he comes by it, the publicity accompanying him winning that mythical crown would do wonders for Khan, already a fighter who has proven to do excellent ratings on television in the United States but yet to draw much of a crowd. It would be the next logical step in the career of a fighter who emerged from the Olympics with high expectations, who dashed those expectations with a stunning upset knockout loss, and who rebuilt himself into a boxer whom some (including myself) would give Floyd Mayweather, Jr. a stiffer test than anyone at 147 lbs. or below.

Peterson? He's going to be trying to get the win against a top-notch opponent that has been just out of grasp so far. He battled Timothy Bradley about as hard as Bradley had ever been battled, but came up short. He rallied late against Victor Ortiz to win over the judges enough to secure a dubious draw. He put himself in position for another shot at a big name with a drubbing of Victor Cayo, a good fighter but not anyone in the class of Bradley, Ortiz and certainly not Khan.

Even though Khan is a boxing "cutie," he's not as shy about attacking as some of them, and Peterson is kind of like a more rudimentary but more aggressive Mayweather. That means this fight stacks up as a boxing-friendly, action-friendly two-in-one. And Khan's trainer Freddie Roach has been pretty vocal about worrying about what Peterson brings to the table that past Khan opponents haven't. It's the kind of fight where the favorite is the favorite for a good reason, and an upset would be highly surprising, but it's also the kind of fight where you can see the underdog pulling it off.
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Mexican junior bantamweight Tomas Rojas said Wednesday that he took a dive against Jorge Arce in 2007 in exchange for 100,000 pesos. The Ring's number five junior bantam said that he was only offered the fight against Arce on the condition that he go down in the 6th, but that he never saw the money.

“The original deal was that if I could knock him out in the first six rounds, there would be no problem but after six I'd have to take a dive and lose,” Rojas told Veracruz newspaper Notiver.

Rojas (37-13-1) and his promoter Zanfer originally denied that he'd said anything of the sort and were looking into a defamation suit, but Rojas admitted yesterday that he'd made the comments. He accused the journalist, Pedro Muñoz, of publishing comments that were made off the record.

Jorge Arce, for his part, denied any knowledge of the events: “I don't know what he's talking about. I don't know what he's referring to. I'm at peace with my career. I simply fight who the put in front of me. Nobody told me anything and if they had told me he was going to take a dive, I wouldn't have trained. If he fixed the fight, that's his problem and he's an idiot for accepting.”

Whatever the problems of journalistic ethics that might surround the interview, this is certainly disturbing news. While none of us would be so naïve as to believe that corruption does not exist in professional boxing, the possibility that a title fight (however minor the title) in Las Vegas promoted by Top Rank and Mexico's biggest promotional firm was fixed is a cause for concern. At a minimum it raises more questions than it provides answers. Questions that Rojas, Arce and their promoters should be made to answer in the coming days. no comments

(Amir Khan, left; Washington Monument, middle; Lamont Peterson, right)

For the last couple years, there's been a theory floating around that Washington, D.C. is ripe to be exploited as a "fight town," that kind of U.S. city that embraces boxing and drives fans to the sweet science in droves. There were subtle pieces of evidence, like the enthusiastic showing at a D.C. press conference in 2010 for the Floyd Mayweather-Shane Mosley fight; the way shows in nearby Virginia featuring Jimmy Lange would sell thousands of tickets despite being largely insignificant to the bigger boxing picture; the way Paul Williams, who isn't from here but trains in the region, said he would get accosted by fans eager to see him have a pro fight here.

Saturday night, that theory will get tested when junior welterweight Amir Khan -- he's one of the six or seven most gifted fighters in the world, and has rubbed shoulders with the likes of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton -- takes on local boy Lamont Peterson in a card that will feature several more of the region's most promising boxers. It's the first truly high-profile boxing match in Washington, D.C. since Mike Tyson-Kevin McBride in 2005, which was more of a sideshow than an actual fight. The ingredients are here for a card that could do very well. And if it does do well, maybe, just maybe, D.C. puts itself on the boxing map indefinitely.
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(Dyah Davis poses with his father after his win over Marcus Johnson; credit Tom Casino, Showtime)

The tail end of 2010 saw the end to a wrenching, multi-generational grudge match spanning decades. Having suffered a defeat at the hands of Aaron Pryor Jr., the future of super middleweight Dyah Davis -- whose father had crossed paths with Pryor's -- remained unclear.

The Coconut Creek, Fla. native quietly rebounded with an impressive 2011, going 2-0-1 with a signature victory over then unbeaten and highly regarded Marcus “Too Much” Johnson in a ShoBox 10-round headliner in April.

Slated to fight former Kelly Pavlik adversary Alfonso Lopez in the co-featured bout on ESPN Friday Night Fights’ season opener on Jan. 6, Davis is looking to carry his momentum into the new year.
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The headlining video is probably a bit rude, but we politely suggest that you sit down and read the week's boxing schedule. It doesn't shine resplendent like last week's, but it's not too shabby. By my count, there are five Ring-rated contenders in action, four of them fighting between themselves. Big time boxing is heading back to Washington D.C for an HBO double header featuring local boys Seth Mitchell and the Peterson brothers, as well as Amir Khan. There's another chapter in Mexico and the Phillipines' growing boxing rivalry, this time between Giovanni Segura and Brian Viloria. Mexico sure is good at having boxing rivalries. Basically, we're going into the holidays, there's some nice boxing on and life is good. To the fights!
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There's no real big eye-popping moment from this weekend to lead in with a highlight clip, so instead we start the latest recommendation from unofficial TQBR visual consultant Jim. (via)

The trend of the weekend was instead toward "decisions made," from the doctor's decision to stop the Miguel Cotto-Antonio Margarito rematch to the robbery mentioned in the headline and more. As usual, I recommend our prior coverage from the weekend, with works by Gautham Nagesh, Andrew Harrison and yours truly, especially since I've left out any discussion of the British show or Saturday's Showtime card (owing to not having anything else new to say about any of that).
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