By Michael Collins: Amir Khan and Golden Boy promotions decided to cancel their appeal to the IBF on Tuesday, stating it would be pointless for it to move forward without two of the key players – referee Joe Cooper and WBA supervisor Michael Welsh – not being present during the hearing for questions.
It’s pretty clear that Golden Boy’s biggest hope in getting the loss overturned would be to go after the referee for taking off two points for Khan pushing Peterson, and additionally not giving Khan credit for the one of two knockdowns in the 2nd round. Welsh could have been grilled for having allowed the mystery man Mustafa Ameen to sit next to him and talk during the fight, as well as allegedly touching some slips of paper.
The pushing that Khan did is considered a foul, even if it’s rarely called nowadays. The IBF would have seen Khan pushing constantly had they watched the fight and unless they were sympathetic to Khan’s side in this case. What would hurt Khan here though is that he wasn’t just pushing off on Peterson; he was also grabbing him by the head and pulling down on it to keep him from fighting in close. It looked like dirty fighting, and Khan did this move frequently in the fight.
I’d say that Khan likely did the head pulling move about as much as he did the pushing. But Khan also was putting Peterson in headlocks and walking with him while holding like that. It was very odd and again it looked like dirty. I don’t that Khan would have had the sympathy of the IBF officials with those kinds of obvious fouls. Golden Boy also asked why Peterson wasn’t docked points for leading with his head.
They felt that if Khan got penalized twice for pushing, then Peterson should have been penalized for leading with his way. I don’t see where Peterson was leading with his head, as he fought with it around shoulder level and didn’t come at Khan the way that body punchers normally do when they’re working the body.