Lamont Peterson returning to Showtime on August 9

Lamont Peterson, still holder of the IBF junior welterweight title, will be back in action on August 9, when Showtime has a card set for the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The question now is whether or not Peterson will be in the main event, or if he'll defend his title in a co-feature bout to a Shawn Porter vs Kell Brook main event.

Peterson (32-2-1, 16 KO) could be a great opponent for division ruler Danny Garcia, who holds the WBC and WBA titles at 140 pounds, and that might make for a better marketing main event than Porter-Brook in Brooklyn. Stiff Jab says that the current word floating around is that Garcia is lining up a fight with Tito Bracero, which isn't particularly interesting on paper, and would mean Peterson would be facing a lesser opponent as well, unless he rematched Lucas Matthysse, perhaps.

The 30-year-old Peterson last fought in January, beating Dierry Jean on Showtime to take care of his mandatory challenger. That was the D.C. native's first fight since a wipeout loss last year to Matthysse in a non-title catchweight fight, which also aired on Showtime and set up Matthysse's September loss to Garcia.

The current top-ranked IBF contenders to Peterson's title are Cesar Cuenca (1), Matthysse (3), Thomas Dulorme (4), Leonardo Zappavigna (5), and Hank Lundy (6). The No. 2 ranking is vacant, because these things are remarkably convoluted and silly much of the time.

All of those -- except for Zappavigna, an already-exposed brawler -- are at least decent fights, and the Matthysse rematch would have some juice, but the real fight to make that hasn't been seen is probably Garcia-Peterson. Both are with Al Haymon, both are top fighters at the weight, and it's a lot better than Garcia-Bracero and, say, Peterson-Lundy or the like.