• Steve Bunce

Wandering eye Khan's big threat against Peterson

Amir Khan is the big draw - but he can't afford to overlook Lamont Peterson © Getty Images

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This weekend sees Amir Khan defend a light-welterweight title for the third time in 2011, against Lamont Peterson in Washington DC.

The Bolton-born WBA and IBF champion is British boxing's only global star - and all he needs to do to beat Lamont Peterson is overcome a guy who is fighting in his own backyard, a guy with a fantastic amateur pedigree, a guy with a great professional record and a guy who's only a little bit older than him. It's a very hard fight.

Peterson's slick, he's clever and he's boxing on his own doorstep - at least as much of a doorstep as he can have considering he was homeless for five or six years from the age of five He's a good fighter, even if he's not a big attraction, and he's a dangerous threat at this point because Amir has some big stuff planned. Peterson is potentially clever enough to ruin those plans.

To win Amir needs to be at his best, and to be at his best he needs to be sure he isn't looking over Lamont Peterson's shoulder towards big fights in the future. One of the sure-fire ways that you can lose is if you take your eyes off the prize and cast them forward - and I just hope Amir pulls himself back, drops all the Floyd Mayweather Jnr dialogue and concentrates on Lamont Peterson.

Amir's in a very rare club in 2011, in that he's made three proper defences of his world title. That puts him in elite company, especially as two of them have been overseas. There's not been a fight like Marcos Maidana last year - a real war - but he's made three major defences and his name has been linked with Mayweather. That's why he's our only global star. His three fights this year are a good trio of defences - Carl Froch has done better but he still lacks the profile that Amir enjoys. Maybe none of them are as good individually as the very best some of our past champions have fought, but it's a very strong collective.

Khan could have been fighting WBO champion Timothy Bradley instead, but he's not fighting Bradley because Bradley has so far failed to see sense. The offers to him have been exceptional, and he's still saying no. Amir is the big attraction in their fight, but Timothy Bradley doesn't appear to see that. Tim beats to a strange drum of reason.

The Bradley fight might now be purely a distraction, as Amir might move up a weight class. The American could well have lost the Khan fight, rather than the other way around.

If Khan smashes Peterson to bits in five or six rounds - in more convincing style than Bradley's wide points victory over Peterson back in 2009 - then maybe some pressure can be put on the American and a fight next year could happen - but I doubt it. There are a dozen options for Khan at welterweight or even a catchweight between the two - opponents in Britain and America, weak champions and big names - and with options come money and even bigger fights.

Waiting around at light-welterweight for Tim Bradley makes no sense. Amir Khan has all the avenues available to him to go down, but Bradley can only continue down the one he's on - the one that ends with him winning regular fights but never becoming a true superstar.

Del robbed in Hel - but he'll bounce back
It was a big weekend for British fighters in overseas fights, but Dereck Chisora's split-decision EBU heavyweight defeat to Robert Helenius seems to be the one that has caught the headlines. Del Boy certainly did enough to win the contest - I thought he won it by a few rounds - but more than that it was a brilliant heavyweight fight, and one he fought with guts and skill.

It was a throwback heavyweight slugfest, reminiscent of the seventies and early eighties. Del Boy put Helenius under pressure in his home town of Helsinki, in front of all his vocal fans, and he deserved to win. There's talk of a rematch, or of Dereck fighting in America after the fight was shown over there. Trainer Freddie Roach was commentating on the fight for US television and he called the decision "a disgrace".

Dereck Chisora will have learned from both his recent defeats © Getty Images

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Chisora has now lost two of his last three, but he's still got a big future in the sport. Protected fighters aren't always great fighters. He may have lost his unbeaten record to Tyson Fury and been unlucky against Helenius but you can't buy 24 rounds like he's had, especially for a heavyweight. Del Boy believes the Fury loss made him.

If the question is: "Is there a future for Dereck Chisora in the division?" then the answer is a clear "Yes". And if the question is: "Will Chisora be a better heavyweight for his two 12-round points defeats he's had in 2011?" then the answer is "He will be a fantastic heavyweight as a result."

The Tyson Fury fight showed him what you can't do with a big fight - prepare badly and enter the ring with the wrong mindset - and the Helenius fight showed him what he must do - get your conditioning right, but more importantly come in with the right attitude. Dereck Chisora is a handful, and will continue to be a handful in 2012.

Elsewhere, Martin Murray from St Helens fought Felix Sturm for the WBA middleweight title and after 12 hard rounds - and I mean hard - it was a draw. That was a much tighter affair than Chisora, and I think honestly getting a draw was good going in Germany. Murray fought out of his skin. He could also get a rematch.

Then in New York, John Murray failed in his bid to win the WBA lightweight title. He was just caught too often over the 11 rounds, and was finally stopped on his feet by Brandon Rios - who had already been stripped of his title after failing to make the weight. Rios will now move up to 140lbs and try to track down our friend Timothy Bradley. Murray tried his best but was caught too often, too soon - although he showed tremendous bravery to stay in the bout for so long, especially as his vision was increasingly impaired as the contest went on.

Cotto could get long-awaited shot after downing Margarito
IIn the big fight of the weekend, at least for American audiences, Miguel Cotto stopped Antonio Margarito in an angry encounter at the top of John Murray's card.

The animosity and the hate surrounding this match was about as vicious as I've ever experienced, following Cotto's defeat in their first encounter over three years ago; a defeat that has since been called 'controversial'. In fact, I thought it went too far and some of the verbal exchanges between the two were plain hostile during the build-up; there was no trace of humour in it, just pure hate.

Cotto did the job on the night and Margarito, sadly, failed to acknowledge it afterwards, saying Cotto "punched like a girl". I was disappointed in that, because the fact remains after beating Cotto he received a ban for having a foreign substance in his bandages ahead of his next fight, against Shane Mosley. There are many who now claim Margarito's bandages in the Cotto fight were illegal. However, there is no proof.

At the time of their first encounter, Cotto was fighting for the chance to take on an unbeaten kid called Floyd Mayweather, but that was cancelled in 2008 following his defeat. But guess what, it could be back on in 2012.

Both he and Mayweather are a bit a older now and, I tell you what, the way Cotto fought the other day it could be an enormous fight - I reckon it could even be the second biggest pay-per-view event in history. That's boxing for you.

Steve Bunce is co-host of ESPN's Pardon the Interruption show. Click here for more details

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