By William MacKay: The hard-punching light heavyweight Yusaf Mack (25-2-2, 15 KOs) defeated Daniel Judah (22-3-3, 10 KOs) by a 10-round unanimous decision on Wednesday night at the Aviator Sports Arena, in Brooklyn, New York. The final judges’ scores were 97-92, 97-92 and 97-92, all for Mack. Judah, 30, the brother of former welterweight champion Zab Judah, was knocked down once in the 2nd round, and out-slugged and out-boxed for most of the remainder of the 10-round bout. Mack, 28, looked especially good in the early rounds, in which he was able to use his power shots to control the fight and punish the much weaker-punching Judah.
In the later rounds, however, Mach faded somewhat, fighting with his mouth wide open and taking an occasional left hand from Judah. Luckily for Mack, Judah had little in the way of offensive tools and barely pressed Mack in the latter half of the fight. Going into the bout, both fighters were badly flawed, with Mack having lost two out of his last four fights both by knockouts. His loss to Alejandro Berrio, a 6th round TKO in May 2006, was especially embarrassing because Berrio kissed him on the forehead moments before knocking him out. In Judah’s case, he also entered the bout having lost two out of his last four fights, and had been brutally stopped by Darnell Wilson in the 4th round in September 2006.
If you were to guess who the better of the two might be going into the bout, you’d probably look in Mack’s direction, only because he was a little younger and had the better power of the two. However, Mack has proven to have a weak chin, average boxing skills and poor stamina, so anything was possible if Judah had been interested in letting his hands go. Fortunately for Mack, he didn’t.
In rounds one and two, Mack used powerful combinations to land effectively to the head and body of Judah. Mack, who had previously fought as a super middleweight before this fight, had surprisingly better speed than Judah. In the 2nd round, Mack caught Judah with a big sweeping right hand as Judah was leaning back foolishly with his gloves down, snapping Judah’s head back violently and sending him backwards up against the ropes. Mack went after him and landed a chopping left hand to drop Judah to the canvas. Judah got up and staggered around the ring, receiving a standing eight count while looking at his corner person the entire time, as if he were on another planet. Mack was much to wild after the action resumed, missing most of his punches by a mile and wasting his opportunity to end the fight in this round.
Judah came back in the 3rd round and landed some excellent left hands to the head of Mack. As bad as Judah’s offensive skills are, technically Judah is a very skilled fighter, showing good form for the most part. The problem for him, however, is that he has no power, average speed and rarely throws punches. In the 3rd round, though, Judah left his hands go enough to win the round, and make Mack look bad in the process. Judah showed the potential he has as a fighter in this round, but unfortunately he couldn’t keep working in this manner in the subsequent rounds, most of which he simply gave away by inaction.
In rounds four and five, Mack used combinations and hard right hands to back Judah up and make him pay for the few shots he would attempt to fire back. Breathing heavily, his mouth open, Mack looked tired and had lost some of the power on his shots. Judah, though, couldn’t throw enough punches to test the weak chin of Mack and let him control the fight by default.
Other than one last gasp in the 6th round, when Judah landed some good left hands to win the round, rounds seven though ten went to Mack, who mostly used his jab to control the action. All the while, however, Mack always seemed vulnerable and looked uncomfortable when getting hit with the weak-punching Judah.
It was a good win for Mack, I give him that, but it’s a far cry from beating better fighters in the light heavyweight division like Glen Johnson, Jaidon Codrington, Yuri Barashian and Adrian Diaconu, all of whom I believe would knock Mack out quite easily.
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