Amir Khan has been granted the rematch he wanted with Lamont Peterson and will fight his rival in Las Vegas on May 19.
Bolton’s Khan had longed for a second fight against the Washington native, after losing their first battle on the back of a hotly-disputed points decision late last year.
Now Khan has been handed the chance to reclaim his World Boxing Association and International Boxing Federation light-welterweight titles at the Mandalay Bay Resort, having been furious when he had two points deducted for pushing in the first fight in Washington and also complained about the ‘mystery man in the hat’ who it was first feared had interfered with judging decisions.
Khan and his US promoters Golden Boy dropped an appeal they had made to the IBF against the original result, and the pair will now face off again as Khan looks to bring his former titles back to Great Britain. Peterson, for his part, had seen the possibility of bouts with Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather fade.
Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, offered Peterson a 50-50 split of worldwide and UK revenues to agree to the world championship rematch. Peterson's publicist Andre Johnson has since been quoted by RingTV.com as saying: "Lamont signed a letter of agreement.... to do a rematch with Amir Khan.
"This came after some long and careful consideration by Lamont and Team Peterson.
"Lamont had weighed every option available to him - some public and some private. There were several options available to us in terms of fights and directions that Lamont could have taken.
"But at the end of the day, this made the most sense on every level across the board."