Junior Welterweight

Lamont Peterson waited 14 long months to get his"Redemption" and he certainly got it tonight with a brutal Round 8 TKO of former WBO champion Kendall Holt.

There were some scary moments in the early rounds of the fight as Peterson looked a little rusty and let his opponent win the rounds easily. But in Round 4 Peterson took charge and put Holt on the floor for the first time.

In Round 6 Holt was once again on the canvas, and it didn't look as though he would make it out of the round.

Round 8 it was all Peterson as he brutalized Holt on the ropes until referee Tony Weeks at seen enough and called a halt to the bout at the 1:42 mark.

After tonights emphatic win it looks as though Peterson is once again a major player in the junior welterweight division.

Thanks for following along tonight and sorry about the less than great connection speed.  

UPDATE: In just about an hour from now Lamont Peterson and Kendall Holt will make their way to the ring, stick with Bleacher Report for live updates throughout. 

IBF junior welterweight champion and D.C. native Lamont Peterson will be defending his title for the first time when he takes on former WBO champion Kendall Holt at 9 p.m. ET Friday in Washington, D.C. 

Peterson (30-1-1, 15KOs) has not fought since winning his title in December 2011, when he defeated Amir Khan for the WBA and IBF belts. That fight, which also took place in D.C., was controversial, to say the least. There were questionable point deductions and a mysterious man in a black hat talking to the judges at ringside. 

Before a scheduled May 19, 2012 rematch with Khan was to take place, Peterson failed a pre-fight drug test for PEDs. The fight was canceled, and Khan was reinstated as the WBA champion. 

Tonight’s fight card has been dubbed “The Redemption,” and that is exactly what Peterson will be looking for in the ESPN2-televised bout after a 2012 he would very much like to forget. 

Holt (28-5, 16 KOs) also is looking to get his career back on track after a 2012 that saw him fight only once. 

Be sure to check back for up-to-the-minute updates on all the action taking place live from ringside!

Chris Algieri, a junior welterweight prospect, isn’t like most professional boxers. 

Most professional boxers have had at least a few amateur fights. Most professional boxers don’t have college degrees, let alone a master's. Most boxers see the sport as a way out of extreme poverty.

In a sport where the top guys usually have hundreds of amateur fights before they ever turn pro, can a guy with none become a world champion? 

Algieri believes he can. 

“I love the sport,” Algieri said. “I am very passionate about it; I don’t have to box. I box because I want to and I enjoy it.

"My passion is for the sport of boxing. It’s not to feed my family or get out of a certain situation. I am not chasing money or anything like that. I am chasing a dream in a sport that I love, and that’s a pretty powerful motivator.”

To say that Algieri had no boxing experience before turning pro would be a little misleading; he just didn’t learn to box in the traditional sense. 

Algieri is a former WKA 154 and ISKA 147 world champion kickboxer. WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko was also an ISKA champion before he took up boxing. 

In addition to his experience as a professional kickboxer, Algieri was also a highly accomplished wrestler in high school. 

With that kind of background and the soaring popularity of the UFC today, one would think that a career in MMA would have been the next logical step.

Not Algieri.

“I grew up watching boxing, I didn’t grow up watching MMA,” Algieri said. ”When I was younger I wanted to be a boxer. I wanted to be a champion.”

So far it appears that he made the right choice. Although he has been learning on the job, the Long Island fighter sports a 15-0 record, with seven of those wins coming by knockout. That’s not too bad for a guy who didn’t have his first boxing match until he was 24.

Algieri will look to keep his undefeated record intact this Saturday when he takes on Jose Peralta Alejo (10-1, 6 KOs) in the main event on NBC Sports Network's Fight Night.  

Michael Walters is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand.

Follow @MWalters202

The highly anticipated matchup between Zab Judah and WBC/WBA junior welterweight champion Danny Garcia has been postponed, according to ESPN's Dan Rafael. The postponement comes due to a rib injury suffered by Danny Garcia in sparring about a week ago. 

I for one was really looking forward to seeing this fight. Garcia is a fast rising star in the sport, while Zab Judah is likely past his prime but looked great in stopping Vernon Paris in his last fight.

Judah is a very live underdog in this bout and is no doubt being taken very seriously by Danny Garcia and his team.  

As for whom the postponement will benefit, it's still unclear. If Garcia is severely injured, maybe pushing back the fight nearly three months isn't long enough for him to adequately recover. Judah should look to exploit any weakness Garcia may have coming into the fight. 

It looks like the fight will take place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on April 27th, which is the same date that Paulie Malignaggi is tentatively scheduled to make his return to the ring. It's not yet known if they'll fight on the same card, or if Malignaggi will be moved off that date to a fight later on in May. 

Either way, fans should still be excited for this fight. It should be a good one between two excellent fighters. 

Follow @RalphLongo

Argentinia's Lucas Matthysse did not disappoint against Mike Dallas in Las Vegas on Saturday night. He won at the Hard Rock's The Joint via a first-round knockout.

Matthysse defeated Dallas with a beautiful first round knockout. He set up the finish by scoring with jabs and straight right hands to the body before the power-punching pugilist utilized beautiful defensive technique to finish the fight. The champ slipped a Dallas jab and answered with a short right hand. The choppy counter landed heavy at an awkward angle to the side of the head and put Dallas to sleep. 

Lucas is now a proven success at 140 pounds and has opened lucrative and intriguing doors in boxing's deepest division. With the win, Matthysse improves to an impressive 33-2. Both tarnishes on his record were split decision losses (in which he scored the only knockdown in both bouts) that remain heavily disputed by pundits. 

Thirty-one of his wins have come by stoppage. The other two came by DQ and a 2008 decision victory. His heavy pressure and hard-hitting style make for great entertainment.

As the WBC interim junior welterweight champion, Matthysse could have an exciting unification contest with the winner for the regular WBC title between champion Danny Garcia and Zab Judah on February 9th.

"Super Zab" was awarded a controversial split decision win against Matthysse in 2010 and Garcia leaped into the boxing picture with a stellar 2012 as he defeated the iconic Erik Morales twice and knocked out the Brit earmarked for legend status, Amir Khan.

Timothy Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez are both coming off career-changing wins over pound-for-pound stalwart Manny Pacquiao and would make for a dramatic encounter with the relentless pressure of the fan-friendly Matthysse. Neither have any bout scheduled at the moment and would easily carry a pay-per-view main event should they clash with his fighting style.

Lamont Peterson is battling Kendall Holt for the IBF title on February 22nd. Peterson showed excellent heart as he willed his way past Amir Khan in a close decision win. A Peterson vs. Matthysse bout would be a great candidate for Fight of the Year due to the grit possessed by both of these pugilist sensations. This would be a war of attrition showcasing the best attributes of the sport.

Brandon Rios would also give Matthysse a tremendous test that would electrify the sporting world and place boxing in the forefront of dramatic athletic events. 

Regardless of which fight is next, fans are delighted to be witness to the potential of great pending action. There are numerous electric challenges out there for the man who consistently delivers. Stay tuned for the best fights ever from Mr. Matthysse.

After hitting a wall with former trainer Freddie Roach losing two fights in a row, former unified 140-pound champion Amir Khan had to make a change to save his career.

Khan did just that, switching from Roach over to 2011 Trainer of the Year Virgil Hunter, and the results showed in Khan's dominating Round 10 TKO of Carlos Molina Saturday night.

Though blessed with speed and KO power, Khan sometimes would get too anxious in the ring throwing wildly, leaving himself open for counter shots, like the one the ended up in a knockout loss to Danny Garcia this past July.

Against Molina, Khan showed that he has become more of a patient fighter, getting in landing his combinations then wisely getting out to avoid any big counter shots.

Early in the fight, Khan (27-3, 19 KOs) seemed like he was going to go down the same path of leaving himself open to a counter right hook, as Molina (17-1, 7 KOs) landed a few in the opening rounds.

Luckily for Khan, Molina is not known for his power, so he was able to take the shots and correct the mistake in the fight before it could cause him any trouble in this crucial bout.

As Khan keeps on training with Hunter, his old tendencies should be a thing of the past, as the best way to correct a problem in the ring is repetition.

Now with Khan back on the winning side of things with a big TKO over Molina, he can now look forward to a rematch with Garcia (25-0, 16 KOs). In their first fight, Khan was beating Garcia early on, but when he left himself open for the huge counter right in Round 3, the fight was changed by a huge right that Khan called a lucky shot.

Should Garcia get by Zab Judah—a fighter Khan already knocked out in 2011—on February 9, 2013—which is no guarantee—then a second bout with Khan should happen sometime in the summer of 2013.

If Khan fights like he did against Molina, then he will have a big chance to get revenge on Garcia and sit atop the 140-pound division once again and possibly set his sights on moving up to the 147-pound division shortly after.

No one, outside of the two fighters in the ring Saturday night, had more riding on the Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez fight than Brandon Rios.

The Oxnard, Calif., fighter had been all but guaranteed a shot at Pacquiao in April and a chance at headlining a pay-per-view card for the first time in his career.

Rios expected a good back-and-forth fight, one in which he believed Pacquiao would once again emerge victorious by a close split decision.

"I knew that it was going to be a tremendous fight, but I didn't know it was going to be like that," Rios said. "I knew there was going to be knockdowns, I figured that."

What he didn't figure was that Juan Manuel Marquez would score what is mostly likely going to be the knockout of the year in what could be the fight of the year over the sport's reigning poster boy.

"Wow, it was just unbelievable, man, the way Marquez knocked him out," Rios said. "The way I seen it—it was the same way Pacquiao knocked Ricky Hatton out that Marquez knocked Pacquiao out—it was just unbelievable.

"I jumped out of my seat and was like 'get up, get up, get up,'" Rios said as he watched millions of dollars and his chance at superstardom lay unconscious on the canvas.

"I told my wife, 'it (feels) like I lost a fight,' I didn't but it feels like it," Rios added. "I was supposed to fight Pacquiao, it feels like I lost a fight.

"It was very devastating because the fact that I really wanted to fight Pacquiao. I wanted to show everybody what I could do. I am ready man, it's my time, I have been doing this for a long time and it's my time to shine."

Rios knows that if by some stroke of luck he's able to somehow still get a fight with Pacquiao in April that a win over the Filipino would be great, but it wouldn't be what it once was.   

"A win over Pacquiao would still bring my name up," Rios said, adding that he wants to fight the best and the best right now, in his opinion, is Pacquiao conquerer Juan Manuel Marquez.

"I thought Pacquiao was one of the best until he got dropped. Hopefully Marquez will give me a chance and me and him fight it out."

Michael Walters is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand.

Follow @MWalters202