28.04.06 – By Matt Stein: Tonight, the amazing young Nigerian knockout artist, Samuel Peter, (25-1, 21 KO’s) will take on Julius Long, a 7″ ft journeyman, at the Mohegan Sun Casino, in Uncasville, Connecticut. Peter, indeed, represents the future of the heavyweight division, for with his awesome power and beautiful hooks, it’s only a matter of time before he becomes one of heavyweight champions. Though, despite his short stature, the 6’2″ Peter probably hits harder than any other heavyweight, which more than makes up for his lack of size, once he connects with one of his monstrous punches.
However, he’s not without defects, as Peter tends to plod forward without throwing a jab, looking only to throw hooks and little else. Clearly, Peter needs to learn how to straighten out his punches and to use an uppercut, as well as jab, so he can avoid being so predictable in his fights. Of course, with the kind of power Peter has, I can’t blame him for being seemngly reluctant to change what’s already working for him. All the same, Peter’s flaws were embarrassingly exposed against Wladimir Klitschko, who put on a boxing clinic against Peter, in Septermber 2005, making him look clumsy and uncoordinated in comparison.
Julius Long has a record of 14 wins, 7 losses with 12 knockouts. However, don’t expect Long to be able to actively compete with Peter in this bout, for he’s nowhere near in the same class as the Nigerian, even with Long’s huge size advantage. Indeed, scattered among Long’s seven losses, are knockout stoppages to Audley Harrison, 2nd round KO in April 2002, and Tye Fields, 3rd round knockout loss in December 2003, as well as a loss to Derrick Jefferson, in February 2004.
Although the 28-year-old Long will have the benefit of a 13 inch reach advantage over Peter, it will hardly matter, since Long, for some bizarre reason, prefers to fight on the inside rather than staying on the outside and using his reach to maximum advantage. Besides that, Long has little power and tends to slap with his punches, throwing them wildly from all angles, something that makes him mildly dangerous. In his last fight with Terry Smith, he often caught Smith with punches that seemed to surprise him, due to the strange angles the punches were thrown from.
Peter has a reputation as a ferocious puncher, perhaps the hardest puncher in the heavyweight division. His power was clearly on display in his most well known fight of his career, a 12-round decision loss to Wladimir Klitschko in September 24, 2005, where he knocked the Ukrainian down three times and came within an eyelash of winning the fight in the 10th round. Despite losing, Peter proved that he is one of the top fighters in the division, from my perspective. Although the boxing public has been less than kind to him, essentially writing him off as an unskilled, crude, and dirty fighter. However, I personally feel that Peter is being treated somewhat unfairly, since he’s only 25-years-old and still has a lot of time to develop his skills and improve. What’s more, people fail to take into account that Peter was being thrown in their with Wladimir Klitschko, clearly the most skilled of the heavyweight champions, a fighter that has the rare ability to both box and punch with extraordinary accuracy. Yet, despite Wladimir’s superior skillset, Peter’s power was the neutralizer in this bout and it kept the fight close when it should have quickly turned into a rout by Wladimir.
Following Peter’s disappointing loss to Wladimir Klitschko, Peter fought Robert Hawkins, (21-6, 7 KO’s) in December 2005, a fight that Peter won by an easy 10-round decision. For the most part, Peter was impressive in the bout, ripping fast combinations that had Hawkins hurt on a number of occasions. However, it was clear that Peter was using the fight to work on different punches, for he would back off a little when he had Hawkins hurt. At times, however, Peter appeared to make the same mistake he did against Wladimir, in that Peter would sometimes appear lazy and would plod forward without throwing any punches.
Regardless of what the boxing public’s perception is about Peter’s future, however, Peter seems to have the most potential of any other heavyweight in the division, even his boxing teammate, Sergui Liakhovich, who many people consider to a the next big thing for the heavyweight division. In truth, Peter, with his incredible power and combined with the way he applies constant pressure against his opponents, I don’t see anyone getting in this guys way, other than someone like Wladimir Klitschko.
Unlike, Lamon Brewster, Peter is usually a busy fighter, someone that throws an enormous amount of punches, and with his power, he is tough to stand in front of fight in close quarters for any length of time without catching something big from him. Consequently, I don’t think the other top heavyweights, like Hasim Rahman, James Toney, Lamon Brewster or Sergui Likahovich, could beat him, not now at least. The fact is, with the exclusion of Liakhovich, most of those guys are getting up their in age and won’t be around too much longer. Understandably, we’ll not likely see Peter matched up against Liakhovich. However, besides him, I don’t think there are too many heavyweights that can take Peter’s power. Tonight, will be no different and I fully expect to see Peter take out Julius Long early in the bout, probably by the 4th round.