LaMont Peterson has not fought in 16 months, but it did not stop him from winning world titles.
Peterson’s ring rust was not a factor as he defeated David Avanesyan via unanimous decision (115-113, 116-114, 116-114) to win the WBA “regular” welterweight championship.
Having not fought since 2015, Peterson’s gameplan involved him working on Avanesyan’s body throughout the whole fight and did so with incredible success. Avanesyan was also fighting back, nearly countering everything Peterson threw at him. The fight was scored very closely for the first 9 rounds of the fight, but Peterson swept the championship rounds in the official scorecards. The final round saw both men going for the knockout punch, but to no avail.
Peterson’s performance could potentially set him up for a future mega fight at welterweight between Peterson and the winner of the Keith Thurman vs. Danny Garcia welterweight world title unification bout on March 4.
When asked in the post-fight interview about fighting the winner of Thurman vs. Garcia, Peterson said he would absolutely love to have that opportunity for further unification. Should Thurman win his battle in March and make a Peterson fight official, the 2 WBA welterweight titles (Thurman is the WBA “super” welterweight champion) would most likely be unified.
The title win gave Peterson a world title in two different weight classes. At light welterweight, Peterson was a former WBO interim and IBF light welterweight world champion. After losing to Garcia in April 2015, Peterson decided to make the move to welterweight and had won his first welterweight bout against former Olympic gold medalist Felix Diaz later that year before his long hiatus from boxing.
