Chambers/Peter - It's Simple...

If your'e taking SAMUEL PETER, do yourself a favor and read this:

This time last year, Samuel Peter was still being talked about as a potential heavyweight superstar. Although he struggled for five rounds against Oleg Maskaev he ended the fight in emphatic fashion in the sixth. “I liked the fact that when he had him hurt, he didn’t get excited this time, he placed every punch — very good, professional finish,” Emanuel Steward commented on HBO.

Then things went about as wrong as they could get when Peter was outclassed and hammered into submission in eight rounds by Vitali Klitschko last October.

Peter looked like a novice in that fight, swinging and missing and unable to get out of the way of punches. About the only thing that could be seen as a positive was that he stayed on his feet.

On Friday, Peter will attempt to get his career back on the right track when he meets Eddie Chambers in a 10-rounder on Friday Night Fights.

Peter opened up as a favourite but the betting public has been piling in on Chambers ever since wagering lines were posted and on Friday the so-called “Nigerian Nightmare” will enter the ring as a definite underdog.

I know that a fighter shouldn’t be written off on the evidence of one fight, but Peter took the sort of beating from Klitschko that could be damaging mentally as much as physically.

Usually a fighter would come back in a fairly undemanding sort of fight after a defeat such as that, but Peter’s people are rolling the dice here because Chambers is a skilled, ambitious heavyweight with a lot of confidence.

Peter is only 28, young for a heavyweight, but he has not been looking impressive lately. It now appears that he might have peaked when he easily outpointed James Toney in their rematch two years ago.

In his next bout, Peter had to survive three knockdowns to eke out a win over Jameel McCline. He gave a plodding sort of performance against the 39-year-old Maskaev before landing some big punches in the sixth round, and then came the beatdown against Klitschko.

Peter will need to be back to his best — or something approaching it — to win on Friday, but I know I am not alone in wondering if his heart is really in boxing any more. On Friday we will find out.

Chambers, 26, also has something to prove because in his biggest fight he allowed himself to be outworked and outpointed by the unbeaten Alexander Povetkin after making a promising start against the unbeaten Russian.

I understand that Chambers is well aware that he let himself down that night and is determined to make amends. He blames complacency for the loss to Povetkin. It appears that he thought he could coast home after looking sharp in the early rounds. Povetkin, meanwhile, increased his own punch output. As Chambers told reporter Robert Morales of the Los Angeles Daily News: “He turned it on and I turned it down,” which sums it up rather well.

Chambers had previously shown a tendency to ease back, though, when he almost blew the decision against the harder-working Calvin Brock. It is one thing for a fighter to pace himself, and quite another to throw so few punches that he lets the other man back into the fight. Chambers does have a tendency to cover up for quite long periods, catching punches on the arms and gloves before letting his own shots go. He will need to make sure there is not too much time between his bursts of activity in Friday’s fight.

Peter is the puncher in the fight, but I think he is going to have trouble getting past Chambers’s defensive shield. Also, Peter is not a high-volume puncher so there is unlikely to be a similar situation as the one that arose in Germany when Povetkin was simply swamping Chambers with a high level of activity. I can envisage Peter getting frustrated at not being able to get a clear shot at Chambers’s chin and being rattled by quick, crisp punches when his opponent opens up. Although Chambers doesn’t do a lot of moving around the ring he does have excellent hand speed, and in this respect his “Fast Eddie” nickname is appropriate.

At least Peter is meeting a heavyweight roughly the same height as himself this time and not one who towers over him the way that Klitschko did, but Chambers’s defence and rapid punch-delivery could make this an equally unfavourable style match-up for him.

I think that Peter’s best strategy would be to use his left jab, which is an excellent weapon, and try to control Chambers on the end of the left hand rather than attempting to blast him out of the fight. If Peter jabs steadily, throws his punches in a measured way and goes to the body every so often with big, whacking right hands — much the same tactics he used in the rematch with Toney — he can win rounds and perhaps outpoint Chambers. I am not sure, though, if Peter can ever reproduce the form of that best-ever showing. Something seems to have gone out of him.

Chambers, though, is only a slight favourite for me. He has already let one winnable fight completely get away from him, and it could happen again at any time. I don’t think it will happen on Friday, though. I’m taking Chambers to win clearly on points.

Peter came in at a career-heaviest 265 pounds at Thursday's weigh-in but he was wearing jeans and a dress shirt, promoter Dan Goossen said over the phone from Los Angeles on Thursday afternoon. Chambers weighed in at 223; he was wearing "sweat pants and a T-shirt". Chambers has been training at the gym run by Goossen's brother, Joe, in Los Angeles. I take this as a positive move by the Chambers camp as the fighter has removed himself from possible distractions at home in Philadelphia. "If Eddie brings to the fight what he's shown in the gym, he wins this fight," Dan Goossen said.