Peterson vs Cayo: Winner Is Mandatory Challenger to Amir Khan's IBF Belt

The winner of this week's Friday Night Fights main event could be in line to face Amir Khan in December, according to Golden Boy's Richard Schaefer, who said this to The RING:

"We were actually notified by the IBF that there would be a mandatory for Amir, which would be the winner of the Peterson-Cayo fight," said Schaefer. "So, we'll have to see how we're going to deal with that once we know who the winner of this fight is."

Lamont Peterson (28-1-1, 14 KO) is the favorite this Friday in Las Vegas, and is a well-respected fighter, though clearly of the second tier of the division, well behind the top two of Khan and Timothy Bradley, in whichever order you prefer. Peterson's only career loss was to Bradley in December 2009, and a year later he got a draw against Victor Ortiz, who is currently one of the hottest names in the sport.

Victor Cayo (26-1, 18 KO) has only lost to Marcos Maidana, who broke him down and knocked him out in March 2010. Since then, Cayo has beaten one guy who was 0-8, and another guy who was 10-5, but the IBF felt he was still a worthy top contender.

Khan won the IBF belt from Zab Judah last week, but I kind of get the feeling from Schaefer's language that if Cayo beats Peterson, they might just have Khan vacate that belt and move forward. It's not like he's staying at 140 pounds long-term anyway, and he also has the WBA belt.

The Peterson vs Cayo bout itself has been incredibly difficult to actually make. If you missed any of it, here was the scenario. Cayo was set to face Tim Coleman on April 29, but Peterson decided to exercise his right to fight an IBF eliminator, which knocked Coleman out of the fight. Then, Cayo pulled out with an injury, and when Coleman was asked to replace Cayo, he basically laughed and cost Peterson any fight at all, and Coleman went ahead and fought his bout against Sergio Rivera that night.

After that, Peterson vs Cayo was going to be the co-feature on the Khan vs Judah card, but was scrapped again. Then, after a short time without the fight on the schedule, it was moved to the July 29 edition of Friday Night Fights. All of that to get a Lamont Peterson vs Victor Cayo fight on a Friday night.