Team Khan Suspects Lamont Peterson Will Sign With Top Rank, Fight Pacquiao

According to an article by Nick Parkinson of The Daily Star, Amir Khan's business manager Asif Vali believes that Lamont Peterson has signed or soon will sign with Top Rank to set up a fight with Manny Pacquiao in June, which would mean that the desired Khan vs Peterson rematch wouldn't happen no matter what the WBA and IBF order.

"The WBA have verbally said they will order a rematch but I’m not sure if it is nailed on because we believe Peterson has now signed for promoter Bob Arum."

... "The reality is there’s so much controversy over fight the honorable thing would be for Lamont to do the rematch. But we made the offer five weeks ago for a date in the middle of April, and we need to get a move on. It’s up to them now and we are waiting for the IBF appeal. Hopefully they will order a rematch like the WBA but we haven’t thought what we will do if we don’t win the appeal."

With the WBA already saying they'll order the rematch, and the IBF probably being presented with enough evidence on January 18 to do the same (probably, not certainly), Khan and Golden Boy are in the best position they can hope for at this point. But it definitely doesn't mean Peterson will fight them. If he gets the Pacquiao offer, there's no way he fights Khan instead. He'll vacate his belts if he has to and move up in weight.

And if he got a better offer to rematch Timothy Bradley, he might have to think about that, too, belts or not. Bradley still holds a title, so he'd be in another title fight. That would be less likely, as Peterson has worked very hard and gone through a lot of trouble to get to the point he's at now, and unless he does sign with Top Rank (which could happen either way), he's not in a position to drop the belts and look for big fights. He doesn't have the backing or the status for that.

There's really not a bad option out there for Peterson right now. If the rematch is ordered by both bodies, I'd say that's fair enough, really, and it's a good fight that Peterson will be paid well for, no doubt a career-best purse (he's already been offered $1 million for the fight).

But if he gets the Pacquiao fight, well, that's something nobody could have imagined all of a month ago. He'd get a few million dollars, get the chance to fight Manny in a huge opportunity for him personally and professionally, and that would earn him name value that can't be replaced, even with a loss (so long as he doesn't Clottey it up in there).

So it's not bad to be Lamont Peterson right now. Sure, he probably won't get to keep his belts and have a victory lap fight next, but is that really what anyone wants? Don't we want the top guys to fight each other?

As for doing the honorable thing, well -- let's say Khan had nipped the fight by a point on two of three scorecards. Does anyone think Amir Khan would be giving Lamont Peterson a rematch? Did they give Marcos Maidana a rematch?