I was at lunch a couple of weeks ago and saw him and his brother training in the park in front of their gym. No boxing though just conditioning. It should be a great fight. Got my tickets!
I've been leaning towards Lamont pulling this off. Lamont's not flashy, but he's solid with good skills, power, and speed, and rugged. His fight with Ortiz proved he won't roll over like Zab did with Amir. And given how Lamont's been promoted/handled in his career, he hasn't the chance to really shin or build alot of confidence in the past. He has the tools to catch Khan and finish him.
let's be honest here. Khan is going to overwhelm him with his speed and power. This is a routine defence that is going to go exactly as planend for Team Khan.
I fully expect Khan to win, but Peterson is no push over. I don't expect this to be a walk in the park. Peterson will have his moments.
If Floyd didn't overwhelm Lamont with speed and skill you can sure as hell believe Khan isn't. Also if Oritz walking in the ring at 164 and being a natural power puncher couldn't put Peterson out at 140 Khan isn't. It is going to be a great fight, the fighter than can adapt the best will win.
I wouldn't say he is much better. He is different, but not leagues better. Like I said is Ortiz who is more powerful, can fight on the inside and outside, and has just as fast if not faster combos could not knock Lamont out, Khan isn't doing it. There is actually a greater chance of Khan being KO'd than Peterson.
It looks easy for Amir on paper, but Im gonna go with peterson pulling the upset(Underdog in hometown). It would just be awesome and it would be great for the 140lbs division, especially with Guerrero and possibly Rios in the mix next year.
Peterson has the skills and physical attributes to compete with and beat anyone in or around his weight class...I'm just not sure he has that mindset that is characteristic of the great ones. On paper, he should have beaten Bradley (same can probably be said about Witter, Holt, Alexander, etc.) but Bradley has that hard, won't be denied mindset. Does Lamont?
Peterson seems to know what to do, he's right about Amir's mistakes but it's just a matter if he can do it in the ring That's sparring, Floyd is pretty relaxed in sparring
Peterson will be a tough out, he's a lot more psychically imposing than he gets credit for and walks his opponents down. Khan can box from the outside better than Ortiz and will get the victory.
Bradley has something you see in great fighters and that is the ability to adapt. If you watched his fight with Peterson he had him hurt and then tried to go on the inside to finish him, that played into Peterson's hands because, accourding to him he overtrained and had no legs to chase Bradley, so he was able to sit down on his punches and might have actually won two rounds by out fighting Bradley on the inside and hurting him badly to the body. Then Bradley came out and started boxing and took away Peterson's chances and the rest was a easy shutout. Point being Bradley can adapt to any situation, almost like Floyd, he can take it inside and be a swarmer, he can counter punch, he can box off the back-foot and pot shot. It takes him a while longer to adapt than Floyd but he can do it. I've never seen Khan do that though, he does the same thing over and over again, even if it doesn't work, ex. Maidana (trying to fight on the inside and repetedly eating uppercuts) and the McClotsky fight. Wrong, Floyd isn't relaxed in sparring and spars pretty hard. Their sparring was intense if I remember correctly and they went after each other card. Peterson was able to beatup Floyd and the next day Floyd came back and beat up Peterson.