AMIR KHAN KO5 ZAB JUDAH

Fans had a winner and loser in Saturday’s big fights on each side of the pond— a rousing battle for the British heavyweight title that saw underdog Tyson Fury defeat Dereck Chisora and a big-fight flop in Las Vegas as Amir Khan ran right over a confused and intimidated Zab Judah in five rounds.
 
As we now say, I’m taking nothing away from Khan, but Judah was a major disappointment: This was a fighter who declared himself “150% ready”; the “new” Zab Judah, he said, was a “monster”.
 
Why do fighters come up with such ridiculous comments and then fail miserably to perform on the night?
 
Khan was fast, powerful and confident. It looked like a welterweight fighting a lightweight. Judah was lost in the storm, and it was the older boxer who looked like the boy, Khan the man. 
 
As they say in Britain, Judah looked as if he didn’t want to be there. I thought he was looking for a way out long before he folded to the canvas in this junior welter title unification bout, blinking after a couple of head clashes, “flying distress signals” as old-time British reporters used to put it.
 
It was never a contest, not for a moment, and I have to say the oddsmakers who made Khan a -600 favourite got it right. OK, I expected Khan to win but what was I thinking when I suggested in the preview that Judah could be a dangerous opponent for the British boxer? I was probably taken in by the seemingly enhanced musculature of Judah’s upper body after a course of fitness wizard Victor Conte’s concoctions. Nonito Donaire has never looked better or stronger since working with Conte, right? There is no doubt that Conte knows what he is doing in improving an athlete’s strength and stamina. However, the athlete, in this case, the boxer, has to do his part of the bargain. Judah was apprehensive from the off. He seemed reluctant to throw the vaunted left hand from his southpaw stance in case he got caught in the attempt. By staying back, though, he was allowing Khan to dominate him.
 
The fifth-round ending reminded me a little of Oscar De La Hoya’s “pounding the canvas” exit against Bernard Hopkins but at least Oscar gave it a good go for eight rounds and didn’t try to claim a low blow.
 
As the replays showed, Judah was hit on the beltline by a right hand that did not seem to be a terribly hard blow, although the punch must somehow have scrambled his sense of awareness of his own anatomy as he seemed to believe he had been hit “in the balls”, as he put it.
 
I don’t know how much the punch affected Judah because, as HBO’s Max Kellerman, would say, I wasn’t in Judah’s body. I will say this, though. At one time it was unheard of for a world-class fighter to go out from one punch to the body. It just didn’t happen, not unless you go all the way back to Bob Fitzsimmons and the “solar plexus punch” that did for Gentleman Jim Corbett. (Yes, Ken Buchanan collapsed a bit dramatically against Roberto Duran but Duran’s right hand didland well south of the border and the Scottish boxer had fought a tough fight with the Panamanian rising superstar through 13 punishing rounds.)
 
Looking back at the great fighters in the welterweight class, it is inconceivable to think of a Henry Armstrong, or a Kid Gavilan, or a Sugar Ray Leonard, succumbing from a single body shot. Not to mention a plethora of fighters from the 1950s and 1960s era, fighters such as Gil Turner, Johnny Bratton, Danny “Bang Bang” Womber — goodness, so many.
 
These big-fight letdowns are coming a bit too frequently for my liking. We had Sugar Shane Mosley back-pedalling for survival against Manny Pacquaio, David Haye in safety-first mode (after much big talk) against Wladimir Klitschko and now Judah promising so much and going out on his knees. Khan was terrific, of course, just as advertised — well-prepared and ready to fight. It wasn’t Khan’s fault that Judah didn’t (or couldn’t) play his part in an anticipated event that failed to deliver.
 
The fight between Fury and Chisora in London was much different. This was a real fight. I picked Fury in my subscribers’ preview service and he delivered, although there were shaky moments when Chisora unloaded heavy hooks and right hands that had the big fellow staggering a bit — but Fury always seemed to have his wits about him and frequently came back banging.
 
Chisora, a career-heaviest 261 pounds, had to pause for breathers with his back to the ropes but he was dangerous almost to the end. Chisora’s blows were weightier but Fury was much the busier man, often punching in combinations — sometimes delivered from the southpaw posture — and Fury deserved the widely scored decision in his favour.
 
While Chisora might not have been in the tiptop condition he hoped to be in, to his credit he showed toughness and heart. He wouldn’t give in. Fury, meanwhile, seemed to be having the time of his life, often reaching out to slap gloves with Chisora at the end of a round as if to say: “Well done Derek, I’m really enjoying this!” It wasn’t quite such a pleasurable experience for Chisora, but he lost with pride and dignity, which I’m not sure could be said to have been the case with the more highly paid loser in Las Vegas later in the evening.