Amir Khan won’t be fighting Lamont Peterson on May 19 because of a positive drug test that Peterson took back in March turned out to be positive. No hearing was done, but Peterson did admit he took the banned substance, which quickly led to cancelling the fight and for Amir Khan to look for a new fight on June 30.
All sides are angry. Peterson has remained quiet, but his camp has been firing away about the truth being revealed, about getting to the bottom of this, so on and so on. Richard Schaefer, the Golden Boy CEO, is mostly upset about the money being lost by having to reschedule a fight for Amir Khan against what should be a less attractive (commercially) fighter. He’s also upset about the results coming out only now.
The lack of transparency from Peterson not disclosing the positive test is shocking, but what is further shocking is that VADA did not inform us. If we would have been informed at the time when the first test came back positive (on April 12) , we would have been in position to save the event.
Now, because of this, we have to cancel an event which has significant financial repercussions for the hotel, HBO, Golden Boy, the sponsors, Khan and especially the fans, who had booked flights and made reservations. The unprofessionalism by VADA and Team Peterson is shocking.
It’s also about thousands of fans (according to the organizers and Khan himself) already purchasing tickets to fly into Vegas from the UK, the United States and other parts of the world to watch the fight. What might be of even bigger consequence is the suspicious nature of Peterson taking the testosterone. Peterson trains in his home town, Washington DC, but he still flew out to Vegas to get the substance at some tiny clinic.
It raises questions of the validity of the first fight, which now Khan and Schaefer will try and overturn. There was enough controversy about the first fight – The referee, the results, the mystery ringside man; Now there’s the chance that Peterson was cheating. If that does turn out to be the truth, then it will be ruled as a No-Contest, and Khan will win his titles back.
For Khan, it is a slight change of plans, but not a dramatic one. He still plans to fight another fighter at 140, looking for a June 30 fight. He still thinks it’ll be his last fight before moving up to Welterweight, before he reaches the final goal of facing Floyd Mayweather. Mayweather might not want to fight anyone else buy Manny Pacquiao, but it’s still alright to dream about it.
I’ll be looking at fighting June 30th, I’m in great shape now, I’m already around weight, I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in. I even wanted this fight when I heard he failed a drug test. I tried to get the fight on, but my parents and team told me it was a risk to my life. It wouldn’t be fair to fight someone who is cheating. Hopefully we can set a date for my next fight in the next couple of days.