By Dean Harman: As one would expect, number #1 ranked IBF welterweight Joshua Clottey (35-2, 20 KOs) defeated former undisputed welterweight champion Zab Judah (36-6, 25 KOs) on Saturday night, beating him by a 9th round technical decision to claim the vacant IBF welterweight title at the Palms Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The fight was stopped after Judah, 30, sustained a wide cut over his right eye early in the 9th, and complained to the ringside doctor that he couldn’t see out of his eye. Obviously, by Judah saying that, he basically was giving the doctor the ammunition to end the fight, which he promptly did.

By Judah saying he couldn’t see, it left the doctor with only one choice – to stop the fight. It probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway if he let the fight continue, because Judah, who has now lost four out of his last seven fights, didn’t appear to be gaining momentum and looked like he was well on his way to losing by a decision. However, the referee Robert Byrd, who ruled that the cut was caused by a head butt, appeared to miss the actual cause of the cut – a left uppercut from Clottey, thus ruining what should have been a 9th round TKO win for Clottey instead of a technical decision.

Judah used his jab and speed to easily win the 1st round, hitting the slower Clottey over and over again with mostly jabs in the opening round. Clottey blocked many of the shots with his gloves, but failed to return fire in the round.

The second round was almost the same as the first, except that Clottey threw a few hard shots, enough possibly to win the round. Judah was playing it safe, just concentrating on his jab and moving constantly in circles to keep from letting the more powerful Clottey land. Clottey continued doing a good job blocking Judah’s punches.

The southpaw Judah came back well in the 3rd round, throwing a lot right hooks to the head and continuing with a constant flow of jabs. Clottey seemed not to really be into the fight like he had in the past, looking as if he were trying to conserve energy for fear that he might run out of gas as he often does later in his fights. Whatever the cause was, he fought without much energy, the same going for Judah. At this point, the fight was incredibly dull, not worth the time to watch and far below the past performances from both fighters.

In the 4th and 5th rounds, Clottey controlled the rounds with his much harder shots. Judah began to bleed from the nose in the 4th round. Not only was Clottey landing the harder shots, he was almost much more active than Judah, outworking him by a significant margin. At the end of the 5th, Judah tried to steal the round with a quick flurry in the final seconds of the round, but it wasn’t nearly enough to win the round given the disparity of punches landed between him and Clottey.

Judah fought arguably his best round of the fight in the 6th round, when he began loading up on his shots and hitting Clottey with a high number of power shots in the round. Too bad Judah couldn’t fight like this in every round, because if he had, there’s no question that he would have beaten Clottey. Due to his age, and long history of tough bouts, I doubt it that Judah is still capable of fighting hard like this for more than a few rounds in every fight without tiring or getting hurt by something thrown his way.

Both fighters landed well in the 7th round, but it was a clear round for Clottey, who tagged Judah with a lot of big power shots, causing his nose to swell and bleed even more. Judah’s right eye began to swell in the 8th round, and his nose began to look worse, bleeding all the time. Clottey, again, dominated the round with his power shots to the head and body. In the final seconds of the round, Judah attempted to steal the round with another flurry of shots, but it was not nearly enough to pull out the round.

In the 9th round, Judah did every little, just circling, clinching and wrestling in close and looking to be tiring out. By standing in close to Clottey, Judah was making a serious error in judgment, because Clottey has an excellent uppercut that he likes to use on his opponents on the inside, and up until now, he hadn’t had a chance to use it because Judah had fought smart and stayed on the outside for most of the fight. However, with Judah in close like this, Clottey unleashed a left uppercut that connected to the right eye of Judah.

Immediately after the shot landed, Judah retreated backwards and started dabbing at his eye. Knowing that he was in trouble because of the cut, he immediately began circling the ring while Clottey patiently stalked him. Seeing the bad cut, referee Robert Byrd stopped the action and walked Judah over to the ringside doctor to have him examine the cut. During the time of the examination, Judah reportedly told the doctor that he couldn’t see out of right eye on the side of the cut.

Upon hearing this, the fight was immediately stopped by the ringside doctor. Whether Judah knew that the fight was going to be stopped or not, like I said, it wouldn’t have mattered if the fight had continued, cut or not cut, because Clottey looked to be the stronger fighter and was still fighting well, whereas Judah seemed to be fading.

With the victory, Clottey, 31, would seem to be a good choice for an opponent for IBF welterweight champion Antonio Margarito, whom he previously lost to in December 2006 by a 12-round unanimous decision. The problem here, however, is that Clottey injured his right bicep, pulling the muscle during the fight, which may sideline him for an extended amount of time. Even without an injury, it’s still doubtful that Margarito would fight Clottey, for he’s not particularly popular with most boxing fans despite his good record.

The fact of the matter is, he’s still relatively unknown by the larger public, many of whom have never even heard of him. Judah, however, is known by many by virtue of his previous title fights against Floyd Mayweather, Cory Spinks, Kostya Tszyu, Carlos Baldomir, Miguel Cotto and Junior Witter. However, Judah, small for a welterweight, has been mostly ineffective in the division since 2006, losing most of his fights during that time.

Though he’s kept his high ranking even while losing often, he should probably be ranked much lower than the number #3 spot, perhaps as low as 10 or lower. At this stage, he’s become mostly an opponent for the top welterweights in the division, with little chance of beating any of them. A fight against Margarito, whether earned or not, would most likely be another loss for “lucky lefty” Judah.

It would, however, be a good payday for Judah, but as far as being competitive with the high pressure puncher Margarito, Judah doesn’t stand even a slight chance at winning, and the only suspense in the fight, as far as I can tell, is whether Judah will make it as far as the 6th round. Hopefully, Margarito chooses another opponent, because this fight won’t be a good bargain for boxing fans from my perspective, as it will be one-sided due to Margarito’s much bigger size, power and work advantage.