By Patrick Kehoe: The heavyweight division has a new punching machine ready to attack the armed but not too dangerous brood of thirty-something's at the top end of the heavyweight division and his name is Samuel Peter. The blocky Nigerian bomber decided he didn't want to fight for anything like 12 rounds Saturday night in Miami, Florida. Landing 57 or 151 power shots against a fleet footed Yanqui Diaz - himself a good enough puncher to flatten Vaughn Bean and famously Juan Carlos Gomez - Peter simply dominated this quality up and comer from Cuba.
The first round was all Peter and he meant every blistering shot he threw. As Diaz tried to move away from Peter's big left hook, despite the tight confines of the 16 ½ foot ring, Peter moved forward pulverizing flesh and bone before him. Diaz's effective jabbing and circular movement was soon over run by a bolting right hand from Peter, thudding off the top of the 6'4" Diaz's head at 1:50. Peter drove forward to end it with a pair of left hooks and Diaz was all but trapped. Bravely, Diaz looked for a monster counter right of his own, still, not even a clear right hand phased Peter's forward advances. Again a right and left hook rocked Diaz; his own countering right hand missing the mark as the fighters exchanged at the bell.
Peter's astute corner man, Andy Anderson, effectively cut Peter free to bombard Diaz, wanting the Nigerian heavyweight to at least jab to the body to set up his advances. The undefeated Peter, 22-0 (19) showed he had more than the left hook which flattened veteran contender Jeremy Williams. At 247lbs and capable of moving in behind double right hands or double hooks to the body, Peter certainly showed an awkward inventiveness against the twenty-eight year-old Diaz. He also showed a relentlessness and willingness to power pot shot his opponent with almost total disdain if not impunity, no matter Diaz's reputation as a solid puncher himself.
In the second round, two hard body shots by Peter drew him into a right over the top, as Diaz tried to makes some hitting room for himself. If Diaz could move, he believed he could minimize Peter's power shots. But then a hard right, as Diaz tires to attack has the big Cubian hurt; Peter was fighting without nervous tension, his punches flowing, as they found holes in Diaz's interrior defensive posturing.
As Diaz jabbed he was hit with a counter right; such was Peter's reflex punching given more validity by his ability to jab to the body of Diaz. The Nigerian jabbed the body again, and let fly with looks to the body to set Diaz up for a blistering right which sent Diaz crumbling to the canvas again just at the bell. When Peter continued his attack with a vicious right uppercut, clearly hitting after the bell, referee Brian Garry took two points away from Sam Peter. So the oddity of the second round, at least on the score cards, was a scoring of the round as a mandated 8-8 round.
Diaz refused to let the fight ebb from his performance and he scored early in the third and fourth rounds with rights and a clean left. However, Peter pressed forward knowing that Diaz was shaken at the end of the second. Another pay off punch for Peter became the right uppercut. Diaz was finding some scoring shots, hitting Peter as he comes in, mainly the right over the top. As an answer Peter attacked the body with withering rights and a left hook to the liver.
The only issue was could Peter keep his power shots coming? As Peter measured and bombed, Diaz himself tried to measure and unload. The difference was sheer power voltage punch for punch. Peter's four blows, at the bell ending the third, produced only two scoring blows and yet both were devastating.
In the fourth and fifth rounds, Peter stepped up his attack and simply overwhelmed Diaz. Especially effective was his left hooks to body, repeated as a left hook to the head. Diaz faintly tired to move off and respond in kind but only managed glancing blows. Then Diaz has his last effective series of shots moving off only to be tracked down by Peter, who lands a massive right hand just a shade off target. When the big exchange of the fight came at 1:40, Peter's finds Diaz with hard left leads to his chest until three clubbing Peter rights, at :44, drive Diaz to the floor. Peter is impatient to have an end to the hunt, unleashing a vicious left, right, left, series which again beats Diaz down to his knees. The last left hook blow by Peter again, technically, comes with Diaz down; this time Garry doesn't call a foul.
In the fifth and last round, Diaz weakly tires to evade Peter and cannot. The Nigerian throws some top shelf combinations such as a right, right, left, right combination and just drubs Diaz further with a right, left hook and right uppercut decking Diaz for a fifth time. What referee Brian Garry was waiting for simply defies compassionate explanation, and then finally the insensitive Garry had seen enough of the one sided beating.
What the fight did prove was that despite the name-drain at the top of the division and the dire forecasts of most boxing writers, there are some diamonds not too far in the rough of relative obscurity, after all. And Peter, being one seriously capable fighter and mammoth hitter, came front and center with his power hitting performance, live and in glorious high definition colour on HBO, for all to see.
Seems live Dino Duva doesn't have to sulk any longer over the misfortune named Kirk Johnson. For he now has a new heavyweight action hero in the making coming up like a freight train on all those middle aged belt holders! Time, indeed, for Mr. Duva to make some of his 'investment' money back. Looking at Peter in the ring, I'd say that was as close to a sure thing as boxing ever allows.
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