By Jim Dower: Former light welterweight and welterweight champion Zab Judah (38-6, 26 KO’s) will be making one of his rare appearances this Friday night against lightweight Jose Armando Santa Cruz (28-4, 17 KO’s) in a 10 round scheduled bout on ESPN2 at the Prudential Center, in Newark, New Jersey.

It’s hard to imagine that the 32-year-old Judah was once one of the best fighters in all of boxing. Blessed with blazing hand speed, great footwork, excellent power and good defensive skills, Judah was one of the best in the prime of his career years ago.

Unfortunately, Judah has done little since 2006, losing to Floyd Mayweather Jr., Miguel Cotto, Carlos Baldomir and Joshua Clottey. It’s not so much the losses, it’s the fights that Judah hasn’t been taking. He’s not been active nearly enough in the past four years, and probably could have fought twice as many fights as he’s done if he had been more engaged and proactive towards his career.

He’s just it drift along, wasting time fighting 2nd tier fighters and not taking the fights that he needed to. At 5’7”, Judah probably should have moved down in weight back to the light welterweight division years ago.

He hasn’t, and has probably wasted the past four years fiddling around in the welterweight division, getting beaten by good fighters and having to get his wins over B level guys.

Had Judah moved back down to the light welterweight division four years ago, he probably would have been a champion instead of just a fighter that looks to take on top fighters every once in a long while ending getting beaten.

If Judah takes the fight to Santa Cruz on Friday night, he should be able to get him out of there fairly quickly. Santa Cruz is all arms and legs, and has no real power to speak of. Judah needs to get close and pound him.

Judah can’t afford to stay on the outside against Santa Cruz because the Mexican fighter has the longer reach and is quite effective when he’s on the outside, jabbing his opponents.

Santa Cruz was taken out in the 6th round by Antonio Pitalua in 2008, and lost a controversial 12 round split decision to Joel Casamayor in 2007. Judah has to beat this guy and look impressive in doing so.

If Judah struggles, which is very possible given his age and inactivity, then he’s going to look bad and that’s going to hurt Judah if he wants to continue to be an attractive opponent for the champions to hone their teeth on.

The problem is Judah’s inactivity and poor choice for opponents recently has likely hurt him in getting fights with the bigger stars. They’d probably wouldn’t mind beating up on Judah if he was more active and keeping his name in the public by fighting more often against good fighters and not just B levels once a year.