Samuel Peter beat James Toney for the second time in three months on Saturday, getting a unanimous decision in a WBC heavyweight elimination bout and perhaps the chance to fight Oleg Maskaev for a championship.
Nigerian-born Peter (28-1, 22 knockouts) was ahead on two cards by scores of 118-110; he led the other card 119-108.
"You saw me tonight," Peter said. "I taunted him. I gave him the Muhammad Ali shuffle, and a little Floyd Mayweather too. You saw what I did to him tonight. This was my best fight."
PHOTO: AP
When it was over, the fighters seemed to disagree again on the outcome, with Toney raising his right fist in victory and Peter dancing around his half of the ring.
But deep down, Toney (69-6-3, 43 KOs) probably couldn't have believed that he would emerge the winner.
"First time, I knew I beat him," Peter said. "I won the first fight."
He took this one, too.
When the fighters last met in Los Angeles on Sept. 2, both men claimed to have won convincingly, but observers couldn't agree on the real winner.
Peter was the winner by 116-111 margins on two judges' cards that night, but Toney was ahead 115-112 on the third card -- and many ringside viewers also thought he won the bout. So the WBC intervened and, by a vote of its board of governors, ordered a rematch with the caveat that the winner would get a title shot.
The 26-year-old Peter's approach was simple: He absorbed Toney's best shots, while keeping the 38-year-old former IBF middleweight, super middleweight and cruiserweight champion near the ropes as much as he could.
Peter had the best of the early going, including a knockdown 20 seconds into the second round -- the first time Toney had been knocked down since 1994, when Roy Jones Jr did it in an easy win over the then-super middleweight.
"I slipped," Toney said. "I didn't go down. I feel I won the fight but it's all good. We'll fight another fight. This guy is supposed to be a hell of a puncher, but he couldn't knock me out."
Toney, with his left eye closing, rallied a bit in the next two rounds. The fourth ended with Toney against the ropes, yet both fighters got in several shots in the closing seconds as photographers and others sitting immediately outside the ring shielded themselves from showers of sweat being knocked off both men's bodies.
By the ninth round, knowing he was ahead on the cards, Peter began throwing jabs and seeming like he was trying to conserve energy and avoid any knockout tries that Toney could muster. He was never in trouble the rest of the way.
"I'm not the best yet," Toney said. "The champions have the belts."
If all goes according to the WBC's plan, Peter may get a chance at the heavyweight belt held by Maskaev (34-5) -- who took the title by knocking Hasim Rahman out in August, then defended it last month with a unanimous decision over Peter Okhello.
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