Amir Khan to get rematch after refereeing travesty

BRITISH boxer Amir Khan is to get a rematch with Lamont Peterson, the hometown boxer who controversially took Khan’s WBA and IBF light-welterweight belts on a split points decision in Washington DC on Saturday night.

Khan told the BBC "a rematch was 99 per cent" and that the defeat would make a better fighter out of him. "This is only going to make me more mature,” he told BBC boxing commentator Mike Costelloe.

The Guardian reports today that the rematch is "almost certainly on 31 March in Las Vegas, at either the Mandalay Bay, where [Khan] fought last year, or the bigger MGM Grand."

Meanwhile, the sub-standard performance of the little-known referee Joseph Cooper continued to attract heavy criticism, even from American fight fans. Cooper deducted two points from Khan during the fight for pushing, a rare offence according to the Guardian's respected boxing writer Kevin Mitchell.

Boxing's bible The Ring weighed in with an article headlined 'Great fight, bad ref'. Michael Rosenthal observed that Khan "probably did more work" during the fight and revealed that he scored the fight 113-112 in the Briton's favour.

The Washington Post, while revelling in their boy's stunning victory - Peterson was an 8-1 shot to take Khan's crown - admitted there had been "umpteen controversial decisions" from the local referee.

Writer Mike Wise remarked that the British fighter "should have known something was up when Cooper came out in purple surgical gloves, almost perfectly matching the colors of Peterson’s camp."

Even those ringside for US network HBO thought the verdict stank. "I don't like that," Max Kellerman told his fellow commentator Jim Lampley, who agreed.

If the Khan-Peterson rematch goes ahead, it will mean Khan delaying his projected fight against Floyd Mayweather until 2013. Mayweather is widely seen as one of the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world, and had been provisionally lined up for 2012 had Khan beaten Peterson this weekend. Khan welcomed the delay. “It's perfect, everything happens for a reason," he told Mike Costelloe. ·