"I didn't see nothing special. All Cuban fighters have a decent fight game, but I didn't see nothing special about him," stated lightweight contender Anthony Peterson, who shared his thoughts on the recent performance of IBF lightweight champion Rances Barthelemy, who scored a unanimous decision victory over Denis Shafikov last month. According to Peterson, who is eager to get a shot at Barthelemy's title, the highly-touted pedigree of Cuban fighters is nothing he's concerned about or hasn't seen before. In fact, Peterson claims the style of several top Cuban fighters is taken directly from American boxers like Pernell Whitaker and Sugar Ray Leonard.
"What people fail to realize is that style that they have was created by Pernell Whitaker and Sugar Ray Leonard. We had that over here. We had that here in the 70's and 80's. We kind of fell off in the 90's and the early millennium. Everybody wasn't accustomed to that type of style. It came back on the circuit and when the Cubans so to speak came out with it, it was like, okay, this is something new. All along, those guys were getting that and copying it from guys from the '76 Olympics and the guys from the '84 Olympics," Peterson explained during a recent conversation with FightHype.com. "AP: Yep! And if you look at the 2000 Olympics with Mario Kindelan, Rigondeaux, and Yuriorkis Gamboa, look at their footwork. Look at all of their footwork and how they position themselves and move and a good account of ring generalship. Like I said, they got that from our fighters that we had. The American fighters that we had from the late 70's and early 80's."
BE SURE TO CHECK BACK SOON FOR MUC MORE WITH LIGHTWEIGHT CONTENDER ANTHONY PETERSON
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