By Jim Dower: Former two division champion Zab Judah (38-6, 26 KO’s) will be making one of his infrequent appearances next month against Jose Armando Santa Cruz (28-4, 17 KO’s) in a 10-round non-title bout at the Prudential Center, in Newark, New Jersey. Judah, 32, is hoping to restart his career back in the light welterweight division where he originally started and found his first success. It may be too late for Judah to find the kind of success that he had before.

10 years ago, Judah was considered by some to be the best fighter in the light welterweight division. Judah beat quality fighters liked Junior Witter, Allan Vester and Reggie Green with ease. But then Judah ran into WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu, who stopped Judah in two rounds. Judah would later capture the WBO light welterweight title a year later with a 12 round split decision victory over DeMarcus Corley in July 2003.

Judah then moved up in weight to the welterweight division where he soon after won the IBF/WBA/WBC welterweight title with a 9th round stoppage victory over Cory Spinks. The wheels came off of the Judah bandwagon in 2006, when Judah was beaten in back to back fights to Carlos Baldomir and Floyd Mayweather Jr. The loss to Baldomir seemed to show that Judah was a little undersized for the division and not up to some of the grueling wars that are sometimes required of the fighters.

Since the losses to Baldomir and Mayweather, Judah was beaten by both Miguel Cotto and Joshua Clottey in failed title challenges. The remainder of Judah’s opposition have been 2nd tier opposition. It’s incredible that Judah has wasted two years since his loss to Clottey in 2008, and has only fought twice since them against Ernest Johnson and Ubaldo Hernandez.

Judah’s opponent on July 17th, the 29-year-old 5’10” Santa Cruz is another 2nd tier opponent for Judah. Santa Cruz, however, was at one time briefly the WBC lightweight interim champion four years ago in 2006. However, Santa Cruz has lost to David Diaz, Joel Casamayor and Antonio Pitalua since then, and was stopped in two of those fights. Santa Cruz has won his last two fights since his knockout loss to Pitalua, albeit against beatable opposition.

Judah needs to look good and get Santa Cruz out of there. Once Judah gets past this obstacle, he needs to get his career in the fast lane and start looking to go after some of the champions. At 32, he’s running out of time to do things with his career. Judah needs to go after WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan. I think light welterweight champions Devon Alexander and Timothy Bradley would beat Judah at this point in his career, but I think Khan is vulnerable to getting knocked out by Judah.

That’s the biggest money fight of the three and the one Judah needs to be looking at. Ideally, if Judah can beat Khan, there would be a possibility of a rematch and Judah could get two good paydays against Khan in the near future.