[3] Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer announced in a conference in London to officially kick off "Capital Showdown: Khan vs. Peterson".

After an extremely close, evenly matched fight for 12 rounds, the heavily pro-Peterson crowd was thrilled by the split decision announced in Peterson's favor.

Khan scored a knockdown in the first round, but was penalized twice by referee Joe Cooper, once for excessive shoving with the forearm and later for hitting on the break.

After the bout Khan, complained about the referee[5] and made accusations of impropriety that the judges' scorecards had been "interfered with"[6] by a man at ringside who celebrated with Peterson after the decision.

Khan's camp launched an appeal with the IBF in December, principally on the grounds of "miscalculation of the scoring," and "inappropriate conduct by officials" and in January 2012, after reviewing the evidence, the WBA ordered a rematch.