By Sean Mcdaniel: Former WBA/WBC/IBF welterweight champion Zab Judah (36-5, 25 KOs) and Joshua Clottey (34-2, 20 KOs) will meet up on Saturday night for the vacant IBF welterweight title up for grabs at the Palms Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The title was left vacant after Antonio Margarito gave it up soon after winning it with a 6th round TKO over Kermit Cintron in April. Rather than having to defend the title against Clottey, whom he beat previously by a 12-round unanimous decision in December 2006, Margarito opted to give up the title and instead fight Miguel Cotto for his WBA welterweight title.
On paper, this would seem like a fight that Judah can’t win. Although he’s perhaps a little faster than Clottey, he doesn’t have the rugged style of fighting that he possesses, nor does he have the chin needed to take the kind of big shots that Clottey will no doubt be dishing out against him throughout the fight. Both Clottey and Judah are roughly the same size, however, but that’s where similarities end. Clottey has excellent power in his left hook, which he often throws in blinding three and four-punch combinations within a fraction of a second.
Judah, 30, has lost three out of his last six fights, albeit against excellent fighters like Floyd Mayweather Jr., Carlos Baldomir and Miguel Cotto. Judah is still fighting well, but appears to be undersized for the welterweight division and more suited to the light welterweight level, where he was a previous champion from 2000 to 2001 before moving up to the welterweight division in 2004. Judah initially lost his first match at welterweight, losing a 12-round unanimous decision to the defensive wizard Cory Spinks in April 2004, but he avenged the defeat with a 9th round TKO over Spinks in February 2005, winning the WBA, WBC and IBF titles in the process.
However, Judah was only able to defend the titles once with a 3rd round TKO victory over Cosme Rivera in May 2005, for in January 2006, Judah was upset by Carlos Baldomir, who proved to be too big and too tough for Judah, beating him by a 12-round unanimous decision. Rather than taking some time off and recovering from the loss, Judah rushed back into the ring three months later in April 2006, and lost a 12-round unanimous decision to Floyd Mayweather Jr.
In June 2007, Judah was defeated by Cotto by a 11th TKO, a fight in which Judah hurt Cotto badly on two occasions, but was dropped with low blows, taking away Judah’s chances to score a knockout. Since then, Judah has been taking things slowly, beating two journeyman fighters Edwin Vazquez and Ryan Davis. Both fights were incredibly exciting with Judah electing to trade shots with each of them rather than easily giving them a boxing lesson, a move that seemed to be done intentionally by Judah in order to please the ringside crowd.
Judah can probably ill afford to fight in the same manner against Clottey on Saturday night, because he has too much power and speed in order to take such a risky gamble. Judah appears to have the better overall boxing skills and stamina than Clottey, but he’ll have to find a way to avoid getting close to Clottey in the first half of the fight when he’s at his most dangerous point. I think Judah is going to be mindful of that, and won’t try and trade shots with him for fear of running into something big.
Look for Judah to win a close 12-round decision with him winning most of the rounds in the last half of the fight. Clottey is a good fighter, but he tends to fade badly in the last six rounds of his fights. He’s more of a six-round fighter than a 10 or 12-rounder.
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