By Jim Dower: Former two division world champion Zab Judah (39-6, 27 KO’s) faces his biggest test in over two years when he goes up against #3 ranked World Boxing Organization (WBO) light welterweight contender unbeaten Lucas Martin Matthysse (27-0, 25 KO’s) in a 12 round bout for the IBF & WBO-140 lb eliminator for the #2-spot at the Prudential Center, in Newark, New Jersey. This is a fight that Judah, 33, cannot afford to lose if he wants to get a shot against one of the light welterweight champions in the division. Matthysse, 28, has very real power and good offensive weapons.

However, he’s not faced anyone remotely as talented as talented as Judah, and we could see a fight that could wind up as one of Judah’s easier ones in the past few years. At one time Judah was considered one of the top fighters in the welterweight division and the number #2 fighter in the light welterweight division. However, Judah has become nothing more than an opponent in the past four years for top fighters to beat up on like Floyd Mayweather Jr., Carlos Baldomir, Joshua Clottey and Miguel Cotto.

After losing to those fighters, it became pretty clear that Judah needed to move back down to light welterweight, where he previously held the International Boxing Federation title before getting stopped by Kostya Tszyu in the 2nd round in 2001.

Judah looked good in beating an overmatched Jose Armando Santa Cruz by a 3rd round stoppage in July 2010. However, that was against a fighter that looked like he had no business fighting at light welterweight and had no power or hand speed to speak of.

On Saturday night, Judah will have to jump out quickly on Matthysse because Judah can’t afford to let this guy stick around for too long because of his power. Matthysse hits very hard, throws a lot of punches and his good stamina. If he can take Judah to the deep end, he could end up stopping him. Judah had this to say about himself while speaking in the third person: “I’ve heard that one of his (Matthysse) strategies is that Zab’s gonna get tired. Let me tell you, I’ve been training very hard; I’ve been climbing mountains in Las Vegas. I feel great. Zab’s not gonna get tired. I’m gonna shock everyone.”

In other fights on the card:

Robert Guerrero vs. Vicente Escobedo
Adrien Broner vs. Ilido Julio
Sadam Ali vs. Gary Bergeron
Mariusz Wach vs. Kevin Burnett
Michael Perez vs. Hevinson Herrera
Angel Concepcion vs. Maurice Amaro
Damion Reed vs. Bastie Samir
Mikael Zewski vs. Ardrick Butler