After nine months, Samuel Peter gets WBC title shot

After a long wait, Samuel Peter finally gets a chance to fight on Saturday when he takes on Jameel McCline. AP

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NEW YORK -- Patience is a virtue that Samuel Peter is fresh out of. It has been nine long months since the 27-year-old Peter last competed, nine months since the man known as the Nigerian Nightmare beat James Toney for the second time to earn (for the second time) the title of the WBC's number one contender.

Since then, Peter has nearly had his top contender status yanked from him again by the scurrilous boxing hierarchy for reasons he still doesn't understand. When he finally was awarded his title shot after months of delays, WBC champion Oleg Maskaev pulled out just weeks before the start of the fight.

"I'm frustrated," Peter (28-1) said softly in the corner of a back room tucked into the bowels of Madison Square Garden just moments before the official weigh-in for his Saturday night fight (Showtime, 10 p.m.) with Jameel McCline (38-7-3). "All I want to do right now is fight."

Peter's anger is warranted. Last September, he won a close decision over Toney in a fight that was billed as the WBC's heavyweight title eliminator.

But following the fight, the WBC determined that because the fight was viewed by many as "controversial" there would be an immediate rematch for the number one contender slot. In other words, do over. "That was bull----," said Peter's promoter, Dino Duva. "Sam won by five points on two of the judges' scorecards. Just ridiculous."

Three months later Peter faced Toney again with the same title on the line. This time there was no doubt as to the winner. The heavy-handed Peter put on a boxing clinic in scoring a unanimous decision, firing stifling jabs that busted the area around Toney's left eye and landing a crushing right hand that sent Toney careening to the canvas in the second round. It was the first time the notoriously elusive Toney had been knocked down in nearly thirteen years. "I went into that fight wanting to kill him," said Peter. "I thought I did that."

After the win the WBC informed Peter that he was officially next in line for a shot at Maskaev's title. But two weeks later Peter's management team was told that Vitali Klitschko, a former WBC champion who was forced to retire due to injuries in 2004, was being granted "champion emeritus" status, which was just a fancy way of saying that the sanctioning body was looking for a backdoor way to bounce Peter out of the top spot and insert Klitschko.

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